How to Fix a Broken Pony
by theContagiousYawn
Summary: "Who am I?" I ask in despair. Not to Luna in particular. Just anyone who would know the answer. "That is a question that only you can know the answer to," Luna says placing her hoof onto my back. It was strangely comforting. A sense of calm washed over the turmoil I felt and I knew that this was nothing new.
1. Chapter 1 Tick Tock

**Author's Note: It's my first fanfic so constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. I need all the help I can get. Also, I initially planned a love triangle between Flash, Twilight and my OC but the ending is getting clearer for me and I don't know if I will add Flash anytime soon or at anytime at all so yeah. Apologies. **

The chilled air nips at my exposed face as my feet crunches along the frosted concrete sidewalk. I silently let out a elongated yawn and push my hands deeper into my pockets. Tiredly, I gaze at the grey sky and the passing cars. Sleepy. Cold. I cross the street with a weariness that has long overwhelmed me since January. Sudeenly, I hear a scream of bleeding pavement as a speeding car skids towards me. I stop mid pace and stare. Though it could only have been a half a second or so before it hit me, time slowed down. My eyes met those of the young driver of the car and I felt cringe of pity. This might traumatize the kid for his entire life. A strange sense of liberation strikes me as I fly through the air. A shred of azure reveals itself in the grey sky and it is the prettiest colour I have ever seen.

I wake up from a sharp pain in my head and scramble up into a sitting position in a hazy panic.

"W-what's going on?" I stutter. My hands brush against the ground and it feels like smooth stone, worn down from the ages. It feels warm from the heat my body has imparted upon it. I don't know where I am. The room is dimly lit but I don't see where the light it is coming from. It's almost as if the stone walls were glowing themselves. It is a strange place but my panic starts to die down and I pull myself up to my feet to take a better look at the place. The ceiling is high, high enough that I can only see an impenetrable darkness above me. I start walking, brushing my left hand on the smooth walls and wondering if this is a dream. The room, if I can call it that, is large like the size of my school gym and even though there is very little light, I can see a faint outline of the floors and walls.

"Is... is anyone here?" I call out, noticing a faint echo following my voice.

Silence and darkness persists.

I didn't have much expectations in the first place but I am still disappointed. That's when I notice that the light is faintly stronger at the centre of the room. I let myself wander towards it and the sight sets a breathe of wonder out of me. It is a perfect circle of faint cyan light. The diameter is probably around 2 meters and the surface so smooth and even with the rest of the flooring I only realized it was water when I reached out and touched it, creating ripples that slightly spilled out of it perfect container before returning to the calm it had once more. The perfection it had was absolutely mesmerizing and before I knew it, I had sat down at the edge with my head propped by my arms, staring at the soothing surface of this giant bowl of water.

"Careful, young one," a soft voice shatters the silence and I yelp in guilty surprise, as if what I was doing was something forbidden.

"What you see before you is no ordinary spring," the voice says. I don't know who is speaking, and the echo is making it hard to pinpoint where exactly it is coming from but right now, my curiosity for this pool of water is much greater than it is for whoever is speaking to me right now.

"What does it do?" I ask, eager to find the purpose of the water. My eyes are pulled back to the glass like surface of the glowing water.

"I'm actually not sure," the voice says sheepishly.

The response was so unexpected that I nearly fall over into the water from sheer surprise.

"...What?" I say after regaining my composure. "Aren't mysterious voices coming out of nowhere supposed to be all knowing or something?"

"My voice ain't coming out of nowhere," the voice huffed. "I'm right behind you silly!"

I turn around and see- well I'm not sure who it is cause I only saw it for a split second before I fall backwards into the water. The basin isn't very deep but I spend a few embarrassing moments flailing around because I can't swim. After I chilled out, I pulled myself angrily from the bowl with a few choice phrases to say to the guy who surprised me.

But the words get caught in my throat because who I see is not a who, but a what. It's a little pale white horse with a black mane darker then darkness hanging over our heads.

"Did you just talk to me?" I choke out, squinting my eyes in disbelief.

"Yup. The name's Tick Tock," he replied proudly.

"Okay, cool," I sigh. "Horses are talking to me. Can't believe how crazy my dreams are getting."

"Hey, I'm not a horse. I'm a pony," he puffs up his chest in pride as though that makes any difference to me.

"Look, I don't really care. I just want to wake up from this dre-" I pause. Something is off. My body feels... strange. I bring up my hands and scream in silent horror as they replaced by hooves.

"What the fu-k is going on here!" I scream, not even trying to convince myself this was a dream anymore. It feels way too real for it to be one.

"Woah, calm down," Tick Tock urges me. "Give me a second. I know someone who can help explain things."

And with that, something strange happens. Tick Tock starts to get older. His legs get longer and stronger and then weaker and his young face starts to mature until it is old and wrinkled. A whispy beard decorates his chin and though his eyes still retain some of that youthful spark from before, they are tired. His white coat turn to a dark grey and his mane goes from midnight black to white.

He coughs a bit and lies down and closes his eyes. There is silence as I sit there in utter confusion.

"H-hey wait, are you dead or something?" I nudge him with my ha-hooves, ready explode from the anxiety I was feeling. This creature was the only one I was going to get any answers from, he can't freaking die before he gives them to me!

"Five more minutes," he moans in a husky voice and he waves me off.

I sigh in relief. But then feelings of annoyance spring up and I nudge him again, a bit more roughly.

"Hey! Wake up!"

"Wah! Whoizzit?" the old pony splutters in confusion.

"Answer my questions before you go to sleep please," I ask as politely as I can, my neck muscles tensed.

Old Tick Tock laughs which then melts into a violent coughing fit and I groan from my impatience.

"Haha, sorry about that," he laughs/coughs. "Really hard to stay awake in this form."

"Alright I get it just answer my questions," I say, crossing my arms, or legs, or whatever this things are.

"Sure!"

"..."

"What did you want to know again?"

I slap my hand-hoof on my forehead and sigh.

"Okay first off, why the hell did I get turned into a horse?"

"Actually, you're a pony," Tick Tock corrected.

"I don't care what I am right now," I say through gritted teeth. "All I care about is why I'm not a human."

"Oh young colt, so little that you know and so much that you do not," Tick Tock gave a sad smile that gave me mixed feelings. "Let me enlighten you some things but to do that, I must tell you a story."

I remain silent, my feelings of impatience and annoyance trickling away to make room for new feelings of... dread. I could tell that what this pony was about to tell me would change everything. And part of me didn't want to know what it was.

"You know what," I say hastily. "It's okay. I don't need to know why. Just change me back and send me home. Then I can forget about this whole crazy situation and pretend that it was a dream or something."

"So you want to run away again," Tick Tock says, the tone of his voice has changed.

I don't reply but what he said shakes me up.

"You ran away from school, you ran away from your orphanage, you ran away from your friends and now you run away from the truth."

I take a step back, then another. I'm sweating even though it's cold enough that I can see my breath now.

"Young colt, you have ran away from things your entire life and every time you do, you feel like you have left a part you behind you until all that remains now is this empty husk before me," Tick Tock says as he walks to the edge of the pool of water. Even though I must have displaced a good portion of the water when I fell in, the water level hasn't decreased even a millimetre. The water has returned to it's calm. A cycle. Disturbance but an inevitable return to peace.

"I give you a choice today, young colt. A choice to either run away or face the truth. If you truly wish to return to whence you came, then simply walk into the water."

And with that, he pulls out a gnarled hoof and barely touches the surface of spring. From within the ripples that he created, a deep violet ravaged the water. When the last ripple died, the cyan pool had now turned purple and cast a different light upon the cavern.

My heart falls. I think about the place that I am in right now, the strange talking pony that can age at will and the pool that turned me into a pony. Gods, I know this has to be a dream, I really have to worry for my sanity if it isn't but it feels so real that it's like the life I had lived up till now was the dream.

My life. My worthless, piece of shit life where everyday I wondered what the point of it all was. Where no matter where I went, I would feel no sense of belonging, where I knew somehow on some fundamental level, I was different from them all. Did I even want to go back? Back to what? I only ever had one friend I ever loved and trusted and he-

I choke back my feelings. Tick Tock was right. All I have ever done in my life was run away. Run away from difficult situations and return to my circle of safety.

"I..." I take a deep breathe. "Please tell me the truth."

Tick Tock smiles and it melts all the tension away. I manage a weak smile back and so the story begins.

There once lived two twin brother unicorns of fire and ice. Though they were as different as night is from day, they loved and respected each other fiercely. Alas, this was not to last as they had both tragically fell for the same mare. Love can be a wonderful thing but sometimes, it changes ponies and not for the better. The brothers fought many bloody battles to court the mare and soon, they had forgotten all the respect they once had for each other.

Now the mare wasn't just any mare who enjoyed stallions killing each other for her. When she found out about the violent fights going on over her, she immediately rushed over to stop them. She begged them to stop, told them she would not be fought over like some trophy to be won and said that she herself would choose the one whom she would love. The brothers stopped their battle in the realization that they had completely forgotten the whole point of their conflicts. They laughed, reconciled and promised each other a fair battle without the violence.

The unicorn of fire was a quiet pony, despite what his element suggests. He went through a period of fear where he had been unable control his natural fire magic and injured many ponies in the process, leaving as many scars on his psyche as it did on the bodies of other ponies. Though he regained proper control with the help of his brother, he still preferred to be left alone. That was until he met the aforementioned mare who brought him out of his shell and helped ease the traumas he had undergone.

The unicorn of ice had a cool exterior but a fiery passion that burned underneath for anything he gained an interest in. He was naturally charismatic and was well loved by his town for throwing the occasional blizzard on a hot summer's day. He loved the mare with all his heart but he was clumsy with his expression of it, often attempting to create one of his beautiful ice sculptures to give her and accidentally incasing her house in a block of ice or such similar incidents.

The mare was a lovely pony who ran a pet shop at the centre of the town. She had a love for all animals though the animals didn't always seem to feel the same way. Nonetheless, she would never falter in trying to gain their affections. The impressive strength of her optimism may have been one of the leading traits in attracting the two brothers. It was a unwelcome dilemma for the mare to choose one of the brothers. They were both wonderful stallions that any mare would be happy to have and yet she was forced to break one of their hearts. It could have gone either way really but the fates had pushed her to the stallion of-

Tick Tock stopped. I waited patiently for him to continue, pretending not to be so into a love story but he didn't.

Instead, he tilted his head, deep in thought.

I cleared my throat after a minute or two.

"Ahem, so then what happened? And what does this story have to do with me?" I ask in a futile attempt. Tick Tock was off in a different world.

I sigh and clap my hooves in front of his face to bring him back from his trance.

"Hello? Tick Tock, are you there?" I keep clapping my hooves.

"Wh-whazzat?" he comes back with a confused look on his face. "Whoops, I did it again."

"Um, does this happen often?" I ask, raising a brow.

"Well, occasionally. Nothing to worry about young colt, at least not yet," he laughs. "Anyways where was I?"

"The part where the mare chooses!" I cry out. Then blushed from being so overly excited about a stupid love story. I put my, 'not that I really care,' look back on.

"Ah yes... Let's continue then."

It really could have gone in either direction but in the end, the mare chose the stallion of fire. The other brother was left heartbroken and-

"Wait," I interrupt. "Why the fire pony?"

Tick Tock shrugs and I groan.

"Oh come on, if you're going to tell me a story, tell me the whole thing!" I angrily retort. "How do you know that it could have gone either way if you don't even know how the mare in love the fire brother in the first place?"

"Look," Tick Tock places a hoof on my back. "Do I look like a creeper?"

The question catches me off guard.

"What?"

"I have better things to do than constantly spy on every detail of everponies' love lives okay? I saw the main events and I'm telling the story my way and if you got a problem with that, then you can just step into the pond right now." He gestures with old wrinkly hoof to the violet water. I keep back the comment that yes, I did think he was a creeper if he was indeed watching them as much as he was telling me about through the story but I let him go on.

Ahem, before I was so rudely interrupted, the other brother was left heartbroken but his brother had fairly earned the heart of the beloved mare and therefore there was no more that ice stallion could interfere with. He congratulated his brother and the mare with smiles, laughter and a heavy heart. There were plenty of other mares, he convinced himself. Surely one day, the pain will go away and he would find new love. But the pain only grew deeper, sinking its roots to the very core of the being of the brother of ice. Every moment he saw his fire brother with the mare, so happy with the mare showing a smile that he never saw when she was with him, it nearly broke him. But the ice stallion hid his pain and loneliness with gentle smiles and lies until he could no longer keep it inside. The day of the wedding between the fire brother and mare, the brother of ice fled the town and as far north as his legs could take him. There he found a mare who loved him and they settled down and married. But he never forgot the mare who was his first love. This unrequited love was cruel. It did not fade as they usually do. Try as he might, he could not forget. He could not stop comparing his own wife to his brother's and it made him a cruel and unforgiving husband. When word reached him that his brother's first foal was to be born next month, it was like reliving the rejection he felt that day when his brother was chosen over him. His wife tried her best to console him with her love, but he grew blinder and deafer by the day. Soon, he could no longer take it and returned to the town he once lived in with his wife. The fire stallion greeted him with open forelegs and with a fake smile, the ice stallion greeted him. Perhaps the ice stallion wanted to return to see his brother's family in ruins, to see his first and only love regret and see that she had made a horrid mistake, that she had made the wrong mistake. It was not so for his brother's family was happy and prosperous, even more so with the new born foal to be on the way. The aching love the ice brother felt quickly turned to pain and hatred for his brother and the mare he once loved and he could no longer hide it. That night, he went on a rampage and froze the entire town. His brother along with his pregnant sister in law lay frozen in their beds.

The ice unicorn's wife had learned of his plot and fled the village to take refuge in the nearby woods. If she hadn't, she too would have ended up frozen for nopony was spared from the broken unicorn's wrath.

When the fire unicorn woke up to the cold and his inability to even open his eyes, he knew what his brother had done for he was aware of the heartbreak his brother had undergone. But the guilt and understanding did not soften his own flames of anger. He unleashed enough heat to melt himself along with his wife without harming her. Little did he know that she had already spent too long in the ice and the sharp cold had drained away all her strength. At this time, the little foal, agitated by the change in temperature, had now decided that this was the time to come out. The mare fought bravely, and with her strength along with the helpless shouts of encouragement from the fire stallion, a beautiful red colt was born. Alas, the mare had used the last of her strength to give birth to the child and thus she passed away without a simple whimper. The fire unicorn roared loud enough to put a lion to shame, to alert his brother that this was it, it was time for their final battle.

The heat unleashed melted the entire town but it was not a violent careless flame. It was one filled with the love he had for his mare and the desire to protect the little foal that had now snuggled against the dead body of its mother. The pony folk were melted from their icy prison.

The fire stallion lured his brother to an abandoned plain to the east of the village in order to keep the villagers and his new born colt safe.

And so their final battle raged and it was the battle in which they completely destroyed each other. The plains still lies in ruin today and they say parts of it are still on fire and incased in ice.

"Huh. Okay, that's great and all but what does that story have to do with me?" I ask, confused.

"That's actually only half the story I need to tell," Tick Tock yawns. "But I'm really tired so I wanna take a nap before I tell the next part."

"Oh you got to be kidding me," I groan.

"Patience, young colt, patience."

And with that, Tick Tock falls asleep on the spot, snoring quietly. I didn't even have enough time to tell him I was not a colt.

I let out a long sigh. I feel fatigue wrapping around me like a warm blanket and before I know it, my head is resting on my forearms and I'm off to dreamland.


	2. Chapter 2 Questions and Answers

A dream. I'm standing over cliff. There is a field ravaged by un-melting ice and billowing smoke and fire below me.

There is nobody else around, just me. It is a lonely, desolate atmosphere and I think of the story I have just heard and a tear rolls down my cheek against my will. A tragedy befell here. One where two brothers killed each other in the name of love, broken hearts and revenge. I sit down, letting my legs, my pony legs, dangle over the edge of the cliff. It's strange. I'm usually terrified of heights and often have nightmares where I'm falling off planes or buildings but even though I'm a hundred, no two hundred feet up on this cliff, I feel... comfortable. I look at my hooves, feel my muzzle and mane and just bask in the strangeness and wonder of it all.

Have I finally gone crazy? Or was the world crazy all along and I just regained my sanity?

I think I know how I'm connected to the story Tick Tock was telling me. The fact that I'm a pony even in my dreams hints at it. The fact that I feel weirdly alright in this pony body supports it. I look down on my body again. The fact that my coat is a bright red clinches it.

I groan. Now I have a billion other questions ask. How the hell did I end up in the human world as a human? Why am I back? Who is Tick Tock? Why is he telling me all this?

Suddenly, the frustration of knowing too little gets to me and I can't hold it back anymore. I stand back up and scream at the wasteland of destruction till my throat feels hoarse (sorry no pun intended hehe). I stand there panting for a bit before I go for a round two when all of a sudden, someone taps me on the shoulder.

"What?!" I turn around angrily to a see pony that was quite different from Tick Tock. Her coat is a dark blue, from afar it would look almost black. On her chest she dons a crescent moon that matches the one above her hind leg. A small black tiara of some sort sits behind a long horn that looked like it could easily impale and kill. me. Two small wings were tucked to her side but I felt that if she unfurled them, they too would be magnificent. The most prominent feature that burned themselves onto my retinas was her mane. There are two layers, one of them a translucent royal purple. The other layer is the night sky embedded with countless stars that constantly twinkled and shifted. Though there was no breeze, it flowed towards her side in waves of perfection.

I suddenly feel shy. Embarrassed as well for lashing out at her for that. And god, she must've heard me screaming like a maniac too. Shoot.

"Sorry, did I disturb you?" She asked, her voice like freshly woven silk.

I sheepishly shook my head. I don't think she was all that taller than me, certainly thinner, but her presence was big enough to make me sweat. Yo calm down, I told myself. It's only a dream.

"I saw a wandering dream and decided to pay a visit. I don't believe I have ever seen you before. Are you new to Equestria?" She asks.

Honestly, everything she said just went over my head. Wandering dream? Equestria? Sounds like it's a place but my head is already swarming with questions and I really don't need anymore. She must have recognized how confused I am because she changes her approach.

"May I sit down next you?" She asks.

"...sure," I reply, not able to reject her. I sit back down as well and look back upon the field in which the two brothers. Neither of us say anything but it isn't awkward or anything, just peaceful.

Finally, I break that peace in order to ask a question.

"Who are you?"

The mysterious pony smiles gently.

"It isn't often a pony asks me that question," she says.

"Sorry," I quickly amend, "did my question offend you?"

"No," she says but there is a tinge of sadness in her voice. "I am Princess Luna, ruler and watcher of the night," she announced in full grandeur. "But you may call me Luna."

"Oh, nice to meet you Luna," I say and we shake hooves. Huh, I'm dreaming of princess ponies now. What's next?

"And what is your name?" she asks. An easy question but for some reason I hesitate before I answer. Almost as if I had forgotten it for some reason.

"My.. my name is Lium," I reply. There's a weird ache in my skull now. Did I really almost forget my name just now?

"Lee-um" Luna tests my name, pronouncing it a little strangely. "An interesting name."

"Uh thanks? Your name is pretty interesting too. It means moon in Spanish right?"

So that brief period of time when I took Spanish in school came in handy.

"Spanish? Sorry, I am not familiar with this Spanish you speak of," Luna replies, confused. "What is it?"

"Oh it's nothing to worry about. Just forget about it," I say. Whoops, forgot that I'm in a world of talking ponies. Guess they don't speak in Spanish. Great, it wasn't one of my best subjects so no complaints here.

"This dreamscape..." Luna stares out to the frozen, burning wasteland. "It's very calm."

I wait for her to go on.

"The dreams I usually frequent are very chaotic since dreams are a place where a pony's state of mind usually manifests and organizes itself. This is a nice change of pace," she says.

"So you visit dreams?" I ask, suddenly realizing that she may not be a figment of my imagination.

"Yes, it is part of my duty to look over the ponies of Equestria in their dreams as well as guard the peace of the night," Luna says and I can see the pride she holds in her role.

Figures, my imagination could never dream up a pony like her.

Wait, maybe she can help me get a better grasp of the situation then.

"Sorry but I am actually pretty clueless of where I am," I say. "In the real world that is."

"What do mean?"

"I'm actually-" Suddenly, the ground wrenches away from my hooves and the fields starts twisting away.

"You're waking up," Luna says as she opens up her wings to take flight. I fall with the ground but she comes after me. As I expected, her wings are as large as life and despite the fact that it feels like I'm falling to my death into a giant black pit that has replaced the previous scenery, I admire the elegance of her wings.

"Oh come on, " I whine, frustrated that every time I'm about to get some real answers, something ends up screwing it over.

"I'm sure we will meet again, " Luna smiles. "Good bye Lee-um!"

"Good bye Luna!" I yell back, and she fades away to nothingness.

And replaced by the old wrinkly face of Tick Tock who was shaking me like a madman.

"Ah!" I jump back and I'm back in the stone room with the open roof and glowing basin of water.

"What's your deal you old coot?" I angrily shout.

"I was being stupid," Tick Tock wheezed. Then his trick with the aging thing kicked in reverse. The wrinkles started disappearing, his back grew stronger, his coat regained it's clean white glow and black streaked his grey mane.

"Quick, drink this," Tick Tock's new deeper, stronger voice boomed. He shoved a vial of clear green liquid to my face.

"Dude I don't drink random crap people shove at me," I complain. "And where the hell did you pull that out of?" He had no bag, it literally came out of nowhere.

"Just drink it before she finds us!" He yells with such desperation and fear in his eyes, I find myself lifting the vial to my lips despite my better judgement.

I gulp it down and it had a strange chemically after taste that made me gag.

"Does this have anything to do with the mare I met in my dreams," I ask, grimacing.

"Partly," Tick Tock says and he pushes me towards the other side of the cavern.

"Follow me and I'll explain things on the way there," he says. He trots right through a wall.

I stop and touch the wall with my hoof to see it go right through. Tick Tock pokes his face back out of the wall and it looks really creepy.

"Illusion magic," he explains. "Now hurry up!"

Swept up in the urgency in the situation, I jump through the wall to find a tunnel lit up by countless gems embedded on the walls and floors. It looked endless.

"Okay so are you going to explain what's going on now?" I ask as we walk down the path. Tick Tock seems to have calmed down.

"Yes," he takes a deep breath and starts to explain.

"I suppose I should start explaining who you are," he starts.

"I think I know who I am," I say.

He lets me go on.

"Is the fire stallion... my father?" I ask tentatively.

Tick Tock smiles sadly and shakes his head. Disappointment fills me.

"Close, young colt. You are on the right track but that is not the answer. Your father was the stallion of ice," Tick Tock says, looking ahead to the winding tunnel that was now curving to the left.

"What? You didn't mention he had a child," I exclaim. "Besides, it makes much more sense for me to the be the son of the fire stallion, look at my-"

I look down at my coat and I stop walking. Tick Tock stops too.

My coat isn't red. Even in this dizzying multi coloured light from the tunnels, I can see that my coat is not red. It's a deep blue.

"What?" I murmur.

"Dreams are curious things, young colt," he says, nudging me to keep walking with him. We resume our previous pace. "We are not always who are are in dreams."

"Then who am I?" My head hurts. Every time a question is answered, more questions come and I feel like I'll never understand anything.

"You are the son of the ice stallion," he repeats. "The story I had told was not complete. You did not hear of the ending of the unicorn of ice's wife."

When the battle ended, she emerged from the forest. She searched the battle field and found the remains of her husband, brutally charred and broken. It was a sad sight to see for she truly loved him with all her heart. And she had yet to tell him that there was a foal in her stomach. His foal.

She buried him and brought the other body of the fire stallion to the villagers who shunned her away.

She wandered away, lost. The only thing that kept her going was you, the little colt that slept in her belly. When you were born, life returned to her eyes and she was reborn. You were loved very dearly young colt. However...

Tick Tock sighed.

"I have to apologize on behalf of Time Twister. Know that we are not all like him," Tick Tock says. I was but a powerless colt at the time as well and Time Twister had grown old and twisted with time. Quite ironic for his name but still."

Time Twister is a Time Warden that collected young foals that show strong aptitudes for magic to be his apprentices.

You inherited a strong infinity for magic from him and that did not go unnoticed by him. In the middle of the night, he attempted to steal you away but your mother caught him and it resulted in violent fight. Your mother was a gifted magician in her own right but she no match for Time Twister. She did however manage to hit him with a stun spell in the middle of his teleport spell and as a result, he ended dropping you while he crossed time and space.

"And then I ended up in the human world," I finish.

"Not quite. You ended up drifting around for a bit before ending up in the hands of another Time Warden, 12-o-clock."

" And what's a time warden?" I ask, puzzled at the new term.

"Oh yes, I forgot how little you know," Tick Tock says. I don't really feel great at that comment but I let it pass.

"A time warden is pony intrusted to keep the order of time. If there is a irregularity, we must fix it. Usually, when ponies use time magic, it doesn't bug the system too much and usually corrects itself but on other, more rare occasions, paradoxes are created and that's when we step in and solve them."

I let that sink in a bit.

"Okay, I think I understand."

Yeah, all I had to do to get a grip on the situation is throw out all previous common sense I had and treat this like some sort of fantasy RPG.

"What happens if those problems aren't fixed?" I ask, eager to learn more. I'll ask how they fix those problems later.

"Time will fall apart. At least in theory. The problems have always been corrected with the utmost priority and nopony wants to risk the destruction of the world for the sake of curiosity."

"Hm.. alright, go on with the rest of your explanation," I urge.

Tick Tock nods.

"As I was saying, 12-o-clock found and saved you but she knew that Time Twister would find you if you remained in this world and so, she brought you here, turned you into a human and sent you off to the other world."

"So that pool of water, it turns ponies into humans?"

"Well yes and no. The pool is actually a gateway of sorts. It is exclusively controlled by Time Warden magic. It can open to almost any alternate world but there are very few that Time Wardens of today know how to open it to. I myself can only open it up to your particular world."

"Wait, does that mean I got here through that pool?" I ask.

"Yes."

"But I fell back in when you scar- er surprised me and that was when I got turned into a pony!"

My head is starting to hurt from trying to understand all this insanity.

"That's because I had closed the gate at that point. The reason why you turned into a pony when you fell into the water and not when you passed through the portal was because the transformation magic only works when the portal is closed," Tick Tock explained.

"Uh, okay. So what about when you touched the water and it turned violet?"

"I used the magic to change the effects of the transformation. If you went back into the water, you would have turned back into a human. Then I would have opened the portal and let you drop back into your old world."

I scratch the back of my head. I think I only absorbed about half of that information.

Tick Tock sees my expression and smiles.

"Don't worry. We'll have time for plenty of further explanations but let's move on. You're going to need a better grip on how it works around here in Equestria."

"Ah give me a sec," he says and stops me. We're still in the tunnel and I've been just following him this whole time through the countless branching. If he's lost, we're screwed. This place is big enough to get lost in for the rest of my life.

"Here we go," he says, looking marking on the wall. On closer inspection, it looks like someone carved a crude attempt at a winged pocket watch. I think. It's really horribly done so it's hard to say. It might also be a apple with a foot growing out of it.

Tick Tock touches his horn to it and there's a clicking sound. He walks right through the wall like we did to get into the tunnel and I'm right behind him.

I don't know what I was expecting to see but it certainly wasn't a kitchen.

"Make yourself at home," Tick Tock grins. It's a pretty normal kitchen, just looks a bit old. It has a sink in which a single lonely yellow cup sits unwashed. There are cupboards and a small green fridge. A round wooden table sits in the corner of the room with three chairs encircling it. The walls are painted bright mellow yellow and the pinkish purple light peaks through the drawn curtains of the windows.

"Dawn?" I walk up to window and look out. The landscape is quite hilly which restricts a proper view of the rising sun but the sky is a pretty shade nonetheless.

I see no other houses around. Wait, that's not the point.

"Hey, weren't we pretty deep underground? How is it that when we go horizontally through some magic door, we end up in this house above the ground?" I question.

"Magic," Tick Tock answered.

I sigh and sit down on one of the chair. This was really odd. I'm a pony and I'm sitting on a chair.

Tick Tock starts brewing tea.

"Do you mind Real Grey?" He asks.

"Do you mean Earl Grey?" I reply.

"No, what's that?"

"Nevermind. Real Grey is fine," I say. "Let's move on. I still have tons of questions. What happened to my mother, is she still alive?"

Tick Tock opens the cupboard and starts digging around.

"I'm sorry but she has passed on," Tick Tock brings over some sugar cubes.

I pretend that it doesn't matter to me. After all, I lived my entire life without a proper mom. It shouldn't be surprising to hear that she's dead.

"How, how did she die?" I ask. I don't want to know.

"She was eaten by timber wolves," Tick Tock says solemnly.

That's when I break.

"Timber wolves!? What the fu-k are timber wolves!? You can't do this Tick Tock! You can't just barge into my life, the life where I have lived as a human the entire time, turn me into a fu-king pony and tell me some bullshit story where you resurrect my parents into my life and then tell me they're all dead anyways!" I explode.

There's a hole in my heart and I don't know how to fill it so I keep yelling.

"Nothing makes sense!Fu-k the timber wolves, fu-k the time wardens, f-ck everything and tell me why the fu-k I'm here!"

There's nothing but the sound of my panting for a few moments. And soon those too fade. And then I start crying. I hate it, I hate showing him this weakling side of me and try desperately to stop the tears, stop the sobbing but it won't stop. Tick Tock wraps his forelegs around me in an awkward embrace and it only makes me cry harder.

"I'm sorry, young colt. I'm so sorry," he rubs my back and I'd never admit it out loud but it feels comforting.

"I've seen your life and the troubles you've faced. You weren't made for that world and as a result, it has broken you."

I see tears fall from his own eyes and that makes me stop my own sobbing from shock.

"But a reason why I brought you to this world was to put those pieces back together. Just as how 12-o-clock saved me from my old life, I wish to save you. Will you live with me as my apprentice?" Tick Tock wipes away his tears and offers his hoof.

I wipe my own tears and snort up my snot, trying as quickly as possible to regain my dignity.

Don't rush here, I caution to myself.

How many times have people lent their hands in help with a hidden agenda behind their back?

But he's not human, he's a pony, I reason. Surely that makes a difference?

Does it? My skeptical side fights back, You've known him for what? A few hours excluding the time you spent sleeping.

But what's the harm? If he really wanted to hurt you, then he would have done it while you were sleeping.

It's a little hesitent, but I take his hoof.

"If you ever do something sketchy to me, I'm outta here in a heartbeat," I warn him.

"Of course," he laughs.

"One more question," I ask. "What does Princess Luna have to do with everything?"

The smile falls off his face.

"I'll have to explain some Equestrian lore first then," Tick Tock sighs. It is obvious that he is reluctant to share this story.

I get a brief overview of Equestria's history in the span of about 30 minutes. The differences between unicorns, alicorns, earth ponies and pegasi, the rise of the two alicorn sisters that controlled day and night, how they overthrew King Sombra, Discord, and how the younger sister, Luna, turned into a nightmare creature and was banished to the moon for a thousand years by her sister, Celestia. When I start hearing about the most recent events that brought Luna back involving some elements of harmony and some pony named Twilight Sparkle, I stop him.

"I get the gist now, just tell me why you got all panicked when I was talking to Luna in my dream."

"The Time Wardens usually keep to themselves but Time Twister has made himself, as well as the existence of all Time Wardens known to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. In exchange for his services in their time of need, he asked a few favors. One of them was to keep an eye out for you."

"Woah hold on a second," I squint my eyes in confusion. "Why? It must have been over a decade since he tried to kidnap me. Why is he so obsessed?"

"It is not he who is obsessed," Tick Tock says. "Enough. I will tell you the rest another day. Let all that I have told you sink in first."

He has a point. My brain is filled with so much information that it might be a good idea to chill out a bit before cramming some more in.

"Go rest. I have a room prepared for you."

Tick Tock leads me to a pretty spacious place. It's furnished with a bed, a desk,a mirror, and a bookshelf full of books. A map of Equestria is pinned up above the desk. I open the closet to see it full of clothes. Ponies wear clothes?

"You're pretty... prepared," I say raising a brow.

"Yes, I suppose I am," Tick Tock smiles sadly. "Go ahead and use anything you need in this house. When you're ready to proceed with your new duties as my apprentice, just find me in my study which is right across from your room," he says. I leaves and closes the door behind him. I explore the items in my room.

I move up to the mirror and flinch. Haha, I guess I still expected my human face looking back at me but instead I see stranger of a different species staring at me with a half amused face.

I'm blue. I laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. I'm freaking dark blue, so dark it might as well be black. My mane and tail is white with streaks of cyan and the only thing that hasn't changed about me is the color of my eyes which are baby blue. To top it all off, I see a horn poking out on my forehead, right above my eyes.

The amused expression my reflection has is replaced with one with despair and confusion. Who am I? Tick Tock says I'm was originally a pony but if that's true then how come this mirror isn't showing what I am at all?

If Jason was here then we would have probably just trashed this place and gone and found our own place in this world without anyone's help.

"But he isn't here," I murmur to myself. Because he's- I choke that thought and stuff it down to the darkest recesses of my mind. I move on to look at the books on the shelves.

There about five volumes of the "History of Equestria" series and some books on magic that caught my eye.

"Basic spells Level One?" I read aloud off the book I just pulled from the shelf. More information was probably last thing I needed but I couldn't keep myself from opening the book. I mean, we're talking about magic. Was this what Harry Potter felt when he was told he was a wizard by Hagrid?

"You're a pony Lium."

I imagined Tick Tock saying that to me with a scruffy beard in his deep, gruff voice. The thought is so ridiculous that I have to chuckle. My mood is lifted and I sit at the desk to look over the book.

I skip the introduction go right onto the first spell.

The simplest of spells and the most useful for anypony is the levitation spell. The levitation is the basis for many higher leveled spells such as teleportation. The heavier an object that the caster is attempting to levitate is, the more difficult it is. It is strongly recommended to for beginners to start out with small objects and work their way up lest you pull your hornstring.

To levitate an object, focus on the object and enshroud it in your aura. Feel the tug in your hornstrings. Remember, it should not be painful. If you feel pain, stop immediately. Once the object is properly cloaked by your magic aura, move your aura up. Moving your horn up may help but it is not mandatory. This is should pull the object up with it. Remember, practice makes perfect!

I poke around the desk drawers in order to find a suitable item to try this spell on. I find a bright yellow feather which looks like a quill and awkwardly pick it up with my hooves. When I realize that I can't pick it up, I just try to lift it up with magic.

Like the book said, I focus on the quill until I feel the tugging on my hornstri-

Woah, woah, wait a second... What the hell are hornstrings?

I'm confused but I continue to stare at the quill but nothing happens. It says an aura should come out all but all I see is the unchanging quill, sitting in the drawer with some paper and a bottle of ink.

I try moving my horn around but to no avail. Finally I just stab the quill with my horn out of frustration and for some reason it explodes and ink gets all over my face.

"Great," I congratulate myself. "Basic Spells Level One and I can't even get the first spell down."

I close the book and head out to find the bathroom.

Now that I think about, how do ponies even take a piss?

I stop in the middle of the hallway, suddenly feeling that familiar tug of the bladder. Slowly, I lower my head to take a closer look the pony anatomy when all of sudden, the study door opens and Tick Tock steps out.

"Oh hey, just grabbing another cup'o tea. What are you doing?"

"Um just looking for the bathroom to wash this gunk off my face," I smile and it's the most forced smile I have ever attempted. Tick Tock sees something is off but he points me towards the bathroom without another word and for that, I'm grateful.

In the bathroom, not only did clean my face, but I became much more familiar with my new body. I go back to my room and put a hoof to my face. This was going to take some time to get used to. I wonder how mares... nope not even going to go there. I flop to my bed though it was late morning and bury my head under my pillow to block the light that was barely filtered through the drawn curtains. Even though Tick Tock warned me against it, I thought it would be nice to see Luna again in my dreams.


	3. Chapter 3 Apprentice Duties

A memory.

It's was a hot day. The kind that makes you want to go to sleep just to escape the heat but you can't because no matter where you go, it's hot or hotter. Jason and I were lying down under the pitiful shade of a scrawny young oak tree at the park, trying not to move too much as to avoid unnecessary raising of body temperature.

"Dude," Jason whispered to me from my left.

"What?" I whispered back.

"I want... to kill.. the sun..." And then he raises his hand up to the sun and pretends to choke it.

"And end all life on earth?" I sigh. "I'm up for that."

And then we started talking about sending a nuke up to the sun and how we would threaten the government with the sun held hostage for all the ice cream in the world.

It was stupid but it helped keep our minds from the scorching heat.

When did I first meet Jason? I think it was shortly after I left the orphanage. I was kind of wandering around, looking for a place to live. I knew the homeless shelter was the first place they would look for me so I was thinking of heading to the park and sleeping on a bench but when I got there, someone was already sleeping on it. A guy my age and we just kind of clicked. He was the first person to understand what I was going through. He ran away from his home too. Told me it was cause of some issues at home and left it at that. My time with Jason was the best I ever felt in my life. We didn't have shit but each other and freedom and it was amazing. It didn't last though, nothing ever does. One cold day in January, death took Jason and with him, a piece of me died as well.

When I woke up, my pillow lay on the ground next to the bed and the sun had dipped under the bumpy horizon to welcome the night.

I got up, trying to shake the sleep off my limbs. When I gain full alertness, I figure I made Tick Tock wait long enough and go knock on the door to his study.

After a few seconds of rustling, I hear his hoofsteps come to the door.

"Ah yes, are you ready to start your first duties as my apprentice?" Tick Tock asks when he opens the door.

"Yeah sure," I respond.

"Alright then, come in." Tick Tock invites me in.

"By the way.. Just wondering but what did that green stuff you made me drink do?" I ask as I step into the room.

"It's a dream stopper," Tick Tock says closing the door. "It simply cuts off the drinker's ability to dream."

"Is it really necessary? I mean, Luna seems like a perfectly understanding person, er I mean pony and I'm sure if I explain to her that I don't want to be found this Time Twister guy then... "

"No, young colt," Tick Tock says firmly. "Both Princess Luna and Princess Celestia are bound by the contract they have made with Time Twister. They have no choice in the matter."

"But she didn't recognize me," I say. "How does Time Twister even know what I look like now?"

"He knows the color of your mane and fur. That is enough. The only reason why Princess Luna did not recognize you is because you wore a different coat of fur in your dream. But I fear that once you started waking and the dream's grip started to fade, she may have seen who you really were," Tick Tock sighs.

"Hey, how do you know what I was in my dream?" I ask, suspiciously.

Tick Tock smiles mischievously.

"Princess Luna is not the only one who can see dreams. Though I cannot interfere directly as she can, I can at least see. Now, enough of those questions. I really must get you started on your apprentice duties. Your first task is to clean my study."

Tick Tock waves towards the chaos.

I'm a bit overwhelmed. I'm no clean freak or anything but Tick Tock's organizational skills are ridiculous.

Most of the walls are covered with bookshelves but most of the books lay on the cluttered desk in the corner of the room or on the floors. There are crumbled up pieces of tissue and parchment overflowing a wastebasket. Unwashed dishes have been piled up next to the desk and I see a few flies buzzing around it. There's a whole bunch of junk I can't even describe as well. And this really random mini fountain is next to the door. It's as a dry as a desert though. You really can't take a step in this room without stepping on something, whether that something is a book or a piece of... toast?

"Oh man, you got to be kidding me," I complain. "Dude, I'm not your personal maid. Clean this crap yourself."

Tick Tock looks at me disapprovingly.

"These are your first duties as my apprentice. I apologize if it is nothing glamorous but if you want to learn anything else, you will organize all these books, bookmark the pages in which they are opened to at the present and place them on the shelves in alphabetical order by the author's last name. Also, take any trash out to the back. There is a incinerator there you can use. Only throw away the crumpled parchment. The ones that look important, you can just place in a pile on the desk after you clean it..."

And so the instructions went on. After he was done shoving orders down my throat, he left the house on some, 'important business.'

I kept myself from whining any further and started my work. I guess it's only fair. This guy was giving me a place to live, food to eat and apparently going to teach me some other stuff (crossing my fingers for magic). The sky was starting to brighten when I finally took the final bag of garbage out to the incinerator.

I wondered if the incinerator he was talking about was the same kind I had back in my old world but nope, it's not even close. Only similarity it that it burns stuff. I was really surprised to find some bright glowing red lizards when I opened that metal box. They tried to jump out but the box was too tall for them. I spend a good chunk of time dropping pieces of parchment and watching them eat it. It's really interesting to watch. They'll all swarm over the parchment. They start spitting some green goo on it which makes it burst into flames and then the creatures start eating the flames. It's a curious sight and in the end, nothing is left. Not even smoke.

Finally, I just dump everything in and close the lid.

I walk back to house, my back aching. I see the tip of the sun now, peeking at me from behind a hill. I step into the house and to the study to admire my handiwork.

It doesn't even look like the same room. The books are all neatly placed on their shelves, papers and parchments all neatly organized on the desk. I didn't really know what to do with the random crap and gizmo Tick Tock had lying around so I just them in a box I found after searching the house for a suitable container. The dishes were all washed. When I got hungry, I raided his fridge and ended up eating his remaining supply of apples and some weird sandwich with daisies and mayonnaise which tasted pretty okay despite how disgusting it may sound. I feel no guilt because I deserve at least that for handling that crazy mess.

Exhausted now, I drag myself to my room and fall asleep on the bed without even picking up my pillow from the floor.

I had a small fear that all Tick Tock wanted me to do was to clean his house. After he came back and looked over the new state of the study, he nodded and then sent me to go clean the rest of the house. When I came back to study after scrubbing down the bath tubs and sinks, I found that he created a new mess of things and I could see the beginning of an endless cycle.

Surprisingly, I didn't mind too much though. Soon, it became a weekly routine to clean the house and a daily routine to clean the study. And I always felt a soft sense of accomplishment every time I did. Tick Tock spent a lot of the time away from the house and the only thing he asked me to do was to clean so in my abundant spare time, I would read magic and history books and explored the hills. Sometimes, I'd go out for the entire day. Part me went out in hopes of meeting another pony, and part of me felt trapped in that isolated house on the hills. There was a map in my room and quite often, I tried to pinpoint where exactly we were based on the geography. There is a forest Far East from here. I can only see it when I stand on the tallest hill. One time, I tried to reach it but around midday, I realized it was much too far away and headed back. Other than the forest, all I can see is hills.

My progress on magic isn't doing much better. I mean, I managed to lift the quill (after a butt load of practice) but it's only for a few seconds cause I run out of steam too quickly. I'm still not quite sure what the hornstrings are cause the only tug I feel when I use magic is the tugging of my eyes bulging out of eye sockets. I look freaking constipated when I use magic.

The history books are rather interesting. I was really interested in Princess Luna's history in particular since she's the only pony I met in this place besides Tick Tock. It seems that in this place, the earth doesn't revolve around the sun with the moon revolving around the earth. Princess Celestia controls the sun and Princess Luna controls the moon. I looked deeper in the banishment of Princess Luna as well and found out she spent one thousand years on the moon.

Holy shit, how the hell does someone spend a thousand years on the moon and not die of boredom. I've been here for a month and I feel boredom starting to creep behind me already. I really have to ask her next time. If I ever see her again that is.

I close the book I was reading and sigh. It's been around a month since I first came here. I've been counting the days on a bit of parchment. I got a pretty decent grasp on the history of Equestria and I read all three volumes of Basic Spells, along with the Intermediate Spell series (though I can only do the levitation spell, and just barely). What is Tick Tock waiting for? He hasn't been home for a while, which is pretty common but it's been almost a week now and that's the longest he's ever been gone for at a time. Food is running out and I dread that I've been left out in this wasteland to die of starvation. Just as I was thinking of packing up the rest of the food and heading out somewhere, a letter pops out of nowhere. I barely catch it before it hits the ground.

It is sealed by red wax that's been stamped by Tick Tock's seal passed down to him from his master's, depicting a clock striking midnight. Or maybe noon. One of the two.

I peel off the wax and un-scroll it.

I'm sure you're reaching the end of your patience, young colt and I must thank you for waiting for so long. The preparations are now complete and I am ready to train you. Be ready to depart by sunset. Find some dark clothing and perhaps something to cover your face if you can.

- Tick Tock

"Depart?" I say aloud to myself in wonder. "Am I finally leaving this place?"

I take a peek outside and I think I have a few hours before the sun sets which will be plenty of time to get ready.

I go back to my room which I am quite familiar with by now and dig in the closet. I pull on a grey sweater and I find a black cap with a hole to fit a unicorn horn.

I find a saddlebag as well and fill it with parchment, quills, a bottle of ink, my own hoof made map and the book that I'm in the middle of reading: Magic for Dummies. I toss the bag over my back and do a last check around the house, making sure everything is neat and tidy. I never used the stove to cook anything- been eating everything raw- but I double check that as well and then I go out side. The sun hasn't moved at all since I last checked. I groan.

This is was going to be the longest few hours of my life. To kill time, I pulled at grass with my fore hooves and feed it to the red lizards in the incinerator. Suddenly, one jumps up dangerously close of getting out of the box. It falls down, dazed for a second before giving one earnest jump after another. Something in my chest moves and before I realize, I reach my hoof down to it without fear of burning myself.

The lizard hesitates for a second before it jumps onto my hoof. I pull it out and place it out onto the grass. It looks around with its wide, round emotionless eyes before spitting out it's green gunk onto the grass and it erupts into flames.

"Shit!" I move to stomp out the fire but before I could, the lizard eats all of it in one gulp. A black patch is all that remains in the middle of the grass. It burps then jumps on my back and goes to sleep.

I scratch my head and but let him be. After I close the incinerator I head to the front of the house. I don't wait for long after before Tick Tock pops out of nowhere. He's got a bit younger since I last saw him but he looks more tired than ever.

"Hey, that's perfect," he says, nodding at my clothes. Then he notices the lizard on my back.

"You let a fire lizard out? Don't you know those are walking disasters just waiting to happen?" He frowns. "You're lucky you're unscathed."

I don't reply.

He raises a brow before his face breaks out into a gentle smile.

"Well if you're going to keep it, make sure you know where it is at all times. I can find a book that will help you train it. Oh, and we should fireproof your belongings." With that, he pointed his horn at my bag and my clothes and I can feel the humming of the magic flowing through me.

I want to say thanks but instead, I just look at my side where my freshly fire proofed bag is hanging and at the little creature finding refuge on my back. I won't say it's cute, but it's oddly comforting to have it there.

"Alright, it's time to be heading off," he says. "Are you ready?"

I nod and Tick Tock wraps me up in his magic and away we go.

I blink and the scenery changes. Vertigo hits me like a bus and nausea rises up my throat. I spot a bush and jump to it.

After I barf out my innards, I walk back unsteadily to Tick Tock who looks at me with an amused half grin.

"Sorry, forgot to warn you. The first one's always the hardest but don't worry, you'll get used to it. Now let's get down to business." He points to hulking dark shape behind him and I'm not quite sure what it is until my eyes properly adjust.

It's like no city I've ever seen before. Somehow, they built it into the side mountain with streams of water falls. Even though the sky is dark and the moon has started it's ascent into the sky, the city glows white and gold. Magnificent ivory towers and arches topped with golden rooftops that shine in the moonlight.

"Canterlot," Tick Tock announces.

"This is Canterlot?" I ask in awe. The picture of it on the map in my room did it no justice. No justice at all.

I can't believe ponies made this.

Tick Tock chuckles.

"Yup," he says. Then his demeanour pulls an 180 degree spin. "But we aren't here for fun and games, young colt. We're here because there has been a disturbance."

"In the time thing?"

"Yes," Tick Tock says. "It's ridiculous how long this has gone for unnoticed but there is a scroll in a certain section of the Canterlot Library with a spell that lets a pony go back in time for a small period of time. I fear if we let go unchecked, the results will be disastrous. Thus, we are going to go in to remove said scroll."

"You mean steal it?"

"No, we are simply taking it from them for the better good," he says indignantly.

"Yeah sure," I shrug. "It's still stealing," I say under my breath so he doesn't hear. There's no point in disguising it, stealing is stealing.

"So what's my role in this?" I ask.

"I'm going to assess your skills by sending you in to take the scroll," Tick Tock says.

"Dude, the biggest heist I ever pulled was breaking into a gas station in the middle of the night. I even got caught afterwards and it all went to hell. What in the world gave you the idea that I can steal a magic scroll on time travel from a place I've never even been to before?"

"It's a library, how hard could it be?"

Dammit he has a point.

"But I can't use magic," I retort.

"You couldn't use magic your entire life so why is an issue now?"

"Because I was a human with opposable thumbs before. Now, I'm a pony with these," I say, lifting my hoofs up for him to make a point.

"Quit whining and do it. If you're successful, I'll properly teach you magic."

My ears perked up at the sound of magic.

"Here, take this." Tick Tock hands me a feminine golden amulet with a small emerald embedded in it's centre. "If you're really in a pickle, just smash the amulet under your hoof and it will teleport you back home."

I sigh and toss the amulet around my neck, cringing at how girly it is.

"Oh, and you might want to leave your fire lizard back here. I doubt that it will mix well with a library," he says.

I look at the creature still sleeping so peacefully on my back and feel a reluctance to wake it.

"It'll be fine," I say against my better judgement.

"I'm not saving your arse if you end up burning down the entire library," Tick Tock says. "Here's a map of the interior of the archives." He shoves a rolled up piece of parchment into my mouth. "I'll teleport you to the Archives entrance. The place the scroll is in should be the Starswirl the Bearded section, good luck!"

And bam! I'm hit with another disgusting wave of nausea as I am teleported to library. I spit out the map and clench my teeth to hold back from hurling again. After a few heavy breathes through my teeth, my stomach settles down.

I pick up the map and open it on the ground.

"Starswirl the Bearded, Starswirl the Bearded... Why does the name sound so familiar?" I whisper to myself as I look over the map. "Oh well, I'm sure I'll remember who he was later. Holy shit this library is huge," I gape. I should have known that this wasn't going to be as easy as Tick Tock made it to be.

Looks like the Starswirl the Bearded section is at the very back of the archives too. I hope there are no such things as alarms here in this world. That's what tripped me up in my amazing gas station heist. I push on the library doors and it's locked. Well, I didn't really expect it to be open, just wanted to double check. I move around to check out sides of the building and I sigh in relief when I see a row of windows. I peek through one to see the interior and immediately swear under my breath as I duck down.

This library has guards.

What kind of freaking library has guards?

I slowly move my head back to check it out. Luckily, he has his back towards me as he's making his way down the hall. His dark armour glinted in the shadowy moonlight and his white mane acted as a sort of plume for his broom head helmet. He had no weapon thank god, but I'm sure he had some super guard training and could knock me down too easily if he had the chance. Carefully and silently, I tugged at each of the windows, praying to the window god that at least one would be unlocked. As I moved down the rows, I felt my hope getting smaller and smaller until I reached one of the middle windows at the backside of the building. I pulled and it smoothly glided up. I do a mental fist bump before bringing out my map of the library. Since I'm at the back, the Starswirl section should be at this hallway... I look through and see a barred entrance with a circular sign clearly labeled, 'Starswirl the Bearded Section,' and stars sprinkled all over the lettering.

"Huh, that was easier than I thought," I mumble. I thought I'd have to do some ridiculous ninja maneuvers around the guards to get here. I take a peak around the hallway which seems to devoid of any guard ponies before returning my eyes back to my next dilemma: the bars.

It looks like I need a key to get through but from where? I guess one of the guards might have it but how do I know which one? And how will I get it from him even if I knew? Even with a surprise attack, he's wearing a freaking helmet so I won't be able to knock him out!

"Damn you Tick Tock," I curse my 'mentor' who must be sitting back at the entrance to Canterlot, laughing at the impossible task he gave me. Guess I'll never learn magic.

"Who's Tick Tock?" A bright loud voice enters my left ear and I jump back five feet in surprise. The lizard on my back is thrown off and he hisses angrily at the rude awakening.

"Sorry!" I whisper to it and it looks at me indignantly before jumping into my bag. I don't have time to think of why he went in there because there's a pink curious face that's suddenly filling up my vision.

"Hi, my name's Pinkie Pie!" She grabs my hoof for a forced shake. "What's your name?" I'm am so stunned by the volume of her voice and the randomness of this encounter that I can only just stare at her as she shakes my hoof with an impressive amount of strength.

I hear a violent shushing behind her.

"Pinkie, I told you to be quiet! We're trying to sneak in, not alert the entire neighbourhood of - wait, who're you?"

I peek over this Pinkie Pie's shoulder to see a, well I'm not quite sure what I'm seeing. She's a mare but her appearance is quite.. unique. Her mane is doing this funky anti gravity ritual and a white bandage is wrapped around her head, right under her horn making her look like some practicer of karate. An eyepatch covers her right eye and her left is a lovely purple which is just a shade darker than her amethyst coat. A scar decorates her left cheek and the black tights she's wearing are all ripped and scratched like she's been through a war zone.

"What's going on guys?" A young husky voice calls out from behind her. A little chubby purple lizard with emerald eyes stares at me. He's standing on his two hind legs and is wearing the same type elastic black suit as the other two but it's in much better condition than the purple unicorn is wearing. A strawberry ice cream cone is clutched in his claws.

Then I hear an explosion go off from the other side of the archives.

**Author's Note: So**** the story should be picking up now after this chapter so thanks to the guys and gals who read up till here. I found out I like building my characters up a bit before properly mingling them with official characters of mlp.**


	4. Chapter 4: Countdown

I wrench I eyes from the three strangers to watch chaos unfurl. Alarm bells are ringing, ponies are shouting and a smell that is the unmistakable scent of smoke is slowly getting stronger with every second.

"I told you guys!" The violet pony shouts with a half crazed look in her eyes. "I told you but nooo, no one believed me but ha! Who's laughing now?!" A maniacal laugh rumbles from her throat and I am throughly freaked.

She then dashes off, assumedly to go check out the explosion, but she only takes a few steps before the purple lizard drops his ice cream, grabs her tail and plants his feet on the ground to stop her. He skids for a few feet but effectively halts the eager pony.

"Spike, let go of me! We have to go see the disaster!" the mare shouts, glaring at the little lizard.

"I know Twilight, but calm down! You're not thinking rationally! I think Mr. Suspicious here might have something to do with that explosion earlier," He says as he points his thumb at me and I regret not taking my exit earlier under the cover of the explosion. "I mean it seems too good of a coincidence that he just happens to be here staring at an open window to most guarded part of the archives when an explosion sets off, sending all the guards to the other side."

"Are you the culprit!?" The pink mare screams at me, all in my face with her eyes squinted in an accusative glare. Her curly mane bobs violently behind her.

"What? No!" I exclaim. "If anything, you're much more suspicious than me!" I mean look at them, they're wearing black spandex suits for goodness sake.

"We're wasting time. Sorry if you are just an innocent passer-byer but we can't doddle around here any longer," the crazy mane mare says. Her horn glows purple and some rope appears out of the blue.

I whistle, impressed. Summoning spells are an upper intermediate level of magic and she did it without a grimace of effort on her face. I am less impressed when I realize the rope is for me.

"Woah, hold on, hold on!" I shout, backing up. She advances up to with the rope floating to her right, ready to strike.

"There's no need to tie me up!" I say, trying my best to show her how innocent I am by raising my hooves in surrender. "I really have nothing to do with the explosion, I swear!"

I might be lying. I have this horrible feeling in my stomach that all this chaos might have something to do with Tick Tock and if this is his idea of helping then I got a few things to say to him.

"I'll go with you willingly," I say. "You're in a hurry to go check out that explosion right? Well, I'm curious too so I'll follow you.

"No, we'll follow YOU," the purple mare commanded. "Lead the way and be quick about it."

"I'm on to you buddy," the pink mare says, hitting my chest with her hoof.

There goes my plan to sneak away while they ran. I nod nonetheless and run off around the building to where I heard the explosion from. The purple lizard hopped onto the back of the violet mare and she and the other one called Pinkie Pie were close behind me. I'll make fun of the name Pinkie Pie later.

When we arrive at the scene of the crime, I gape at the destruction. There's a bunch of guards surrounding a wall that's been blown wide open. Chunks of bricks and other debris litter the grass. Thick dark plumes of smoke snake out of the hole in the wall and I hear the crisp crackling of fire from deep within. Suddenly, the fire lizard in my bag pokes his little nose out of the bag and then jumps out.

"Woah wait there little guy!" I yell out to it but it pays me no heed and scurries over into the smoke.

I groan and chase after him.

"Wait, you can't go in there!" Guards yell at me but I ignore them and plough on through.

"Come back... shoot, I haven't given you name yet have I?"

The smoke is too much and I'm soon over whelmed by it. I'm coughing and hacking while my eyes are watering like a overflowing bathtub. I drop down to the ground to get some decent air and crawl my way to the source of the fire: a large pile of books. They haven't just fallen there by chance and caught on fire. No.. it's obviously someone has deliberately put a bunch of books in a pile and lit it on fire to create this heavy smoke cover. It hurts to see the books burn and I'm surprised that I care so much about them. I guess it makes sense. I never read that much in the other world because they always made me read the stupidest books that I could care less about. But here.. there were so much freedom. I read what I wanted and it was all interesting.

I slap myself to snap out of my reverie and look around desperately for a way to extinguish the flames.

That's when I see the red lizard munching away at the flames, piece by piece at an astonishing rate. The smoke starts to decrease.

"Oh, no the books..." I hear a voice behind me. I turn to see the purple mare and her friends rushing towards me from the hole in the wall.

"It's okay," I say sadly. "The lizard's got control of the fire." As I say that, the little bugger swallowed the last flame and fell down, his belly bulging.

"You did good," I patting his warm head. He looks at me and burps some smoke out. I smile and put him into my bag where he closes his eyes and yawns.

"A fire salamander," the purple mare says. "Yes, useful for taking care of fire if he's not the one who started it that is."

"He didn't. He just came out of my bag when he sense food," I reply looking around. Was it just me or was I hearing a faint beeping sound?

She also looks around and her eyes widen in recognition.

"Oh no this is Princess Celestia's private library," she cries out. She runs and looks at the scorched books. "These are extremely rare copies..." Tears start running down her face. It wasn't burning for too long so only the top books on the pile got burned but still, she looks like the world ended.

I feel for her though I couldn't possibly understand the value of the books.. but where the hell was this beeping coming from?

"Do you hear that?" I ask, looking around.

"I hear beeping," Spike says.

"Me too!" Pinkie Pie exclaims excitedly. "Oooh, is this like a treasure hunt?" She starts running around the library checking nooks and corners for the treasure.

"I think it's coming from this," the purple mare says wiping her tears and pointing to a black box that's been duck taped to the side of bookshelf. Pinkie Pie doesn't seem to hear her as she keeps searching the library. She steps towards it to take a closer look and I do too.

"What is it?" Spike asks as he starts picking up books and piling them up.

00:25...

00:24...

A digital display shows a count down. I didn't think there was such technology in this world. I look at the coloured wires poking around the box and gulp.

00:20...

00:19...

No, it can't be...

"It looks like it's counting down," the purple mare frowns. "But I've never seen something like this before though. What do you think it does?"

00:14...

"Oh shit, it's a bomb." I whisper, my heart stopped. I throw her onto my back and gallop out as fast as my unpracticed legs can take me.

00:13

"What are doing?" She says, squirming to get off my back. I pull out all my magical reserves to make her stay on.

"It's going to freaking explode!" I yell back.

She freezes. "Wait, Spike and Pinkie Pie are still back there! We have to go back!"

"It's too late for them!" I yell.

"No it isn't! Let me go!" she screams.

We reach the broken hole where the guards are wandering around, looking really lost. That pisses me off but I don't have time to worry about their uselessness. I throw the purple mare at them and head back to the depths of the library to find the others.

"Stay there!" I shout back.

I see the purple lizard waddling towards me at a painfully slow pace.

"Run man, run!" I say to him. "Where's your pink friend?"

"She's fiddling with the black box! Is it really going to explode?" He asks doubtfully, though there is fear around that doubt.

I don't reply and dash off to the bomb.

What the hell am I doing? Why the hell am I risking my life for these ponies I've never met before? I swear under my breath, my legs moving much slower than I'd like them too.

I spot Pinkie Pie standing next to the black box and she's holding a pair of pliers from who knows where. Oh god, it's going to explode any second now, what is she doing?!

She turns towards me and waves.

"Look!" she says brightly as if we were having a pleasant conversation at cafe. "I increased the time on this clock!"

I gape at the box because indeed, the time has now increased to over a minute. Plenty of time to get out safely.

Before I can release a sigh of relief, she cuts another wire and the timer goes down to six seconds.

"Whoops," Pinkie Pie sticks out her tongue with a bashful smile. There's no time to think.

"Run!" I scream at her and she jolts into action. We jump over books and and I hear the chilling sound of the beeping chasing us.

00:05...

We pass the purple lizard creature who is trying to run but he's holding his stomach and groaning.

00:04...

I screech to a stop, run back towards him and toss him onto my back. Pinkie Pie slows down but I tell her to keep running.

00:03

I don't think I'm going to make it. I regret not working out this body more when I had all that time. I'm not fast enough.

00:02 There's a wastebasket to my right. I throw Spike into it, toss the basket up and kick it with all the strength my hind legs has to offer.

00:01

It soars with frightening accuracy out the hole. I don't have time to feel any relief though and I scramble to get the emerald necklace off my neck.

"Shit, shit, shit!" I'm too panicked and it won't come off.

00:00

I listen to the sound of my world ending.


	5. Chapter 5 Dead or Alive

Jason was a guy who was like the protagonist of a book but instead of outshining everyone, he would make everyone he met feel and seem like they were most interesting people in the world. He always made friends so easily. I on the other hand was a really awkward person who could make anyone I talk to feel awkward. His talent came as a big help for two homeless teens on the street. We only ever slept on a park bench once and that was the first time we met.

His talent was useful but I never felt envious of that talent.

I guess it's something like looking at the night sky. You can admire the stars for their brilliance but you don't wish to be one of them. I was content with watching. Unfortunately, watching was all I ever did. Jason did nothing but give and I did nothing but take. Eventually, he ran out of things to give. I had sucked him dry.

Twilight's POV:

Though it was only for a few seconds, it felt like eternity.

It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds of time since the stallion with the black cap galloped back into the hole in the wall of the archives but every second filled me with more panic and frustration. I look at the hole in the brick wall. Was this caused by the same device the dark unicorn said would explode? These walls are coated with an anti-magic spell that Princess Celestia herself casted. I shudder to think of what kind of destructive power could get through.

"What are you guards doing?!" I yelled at the lumbering unicorns in armour.

"Hey! You can't go in there!" One yelled, looking dazed.

"Stop!" Another one yelled. His eyes were half closed as he stared at a blade of grass.

"What on earth is going on here?" I ask, confusion swirling around me. I start pulling the guards away from the hole, praying that it was the right decision to trust the capped pony with my friends' lives.

All of sudden, Pinkie Pie jumps out of the hole.

"Oh thank Celestia you're alright Pinkie!" I shout, catching her in a hug. "Where's Spike?"

"Cappy's got him," Pinkie says, a rare look of anxiety on her face. I peer into the hole and suddenly, I see a waste basket heading straight for my head!

I instinctively I dodge and the basket soars right on through. When it lands, I hear an familiar voice crying out in pain.

Tears well in my eyes before I even see who is in the basket.

"Spike!" I saying, trotting up to my favourite dragon as he crawls out of the basket with dazed eyes.

"Oh I don't feel so good," he groans as he holds his stomach.

"Duck!" Pinkie's shrill voice cries out and I don't hesitate to tackle Spike down into the ground.

Then the explosion hits and I gasp out loud as I'm enveloped by a wave of sound so intense I can feel in my chest. If the whole of Canterlot didn't hear the last explosion, they certainly did now.

Spike and I lay on the ground for a few moments, stunned. Our ears are ringing. Spike says something but I only see his mouth moving. I try to tell him that I can't hear him and I realize I can't even hear the sound of my own voice. I feel something rumble and my jaw drops in horror as I look up to that the roof has caved in.

Oh no that pony is still in there! I angrily scold myself for forgetting such an important fact. My hearing starts to come back and I hear Spike yelling after me. It's too muffled to make out but I ignore him nonetheless and charge back into hole in the wall.

I slow down and my voice gets caught into my throat. Splintered bookshelves and shredded books are scattered from the explosion. A wall of concrete and stone, along with the roof shales blocks my path. Nopony could have survived that blast and even if they did, they would have been crushed under weight of the roof. He died saving us and I didn't even know his name.

"Maybe he teleported out?" Spike says not looking like he believes it himself. I shake my head. He knows as well as I do that teleportation is a very high levelled magic that only the elite of unicorns can preform. It takes heavy concentration, not easy to do in the face of imminent danger. And if he could've used it, he would have used it instead of using his legs to escort all of us out.

"I should have gone in instead of him," I say, staring at the rubble. "I know teleportation."

"Twilight, you know that you just learned that. Princess Celestia specifically warned you not to use it in times of panic else you'll end up somewhere you might not be able to get back from."

"But still Spike," I say shaking my head. "I should have been the one to go. He didn't even know us. We dragged him into this mess."

"No Twilight... It's my fault. If I didn't eat so much ice cream, then I wouldn't have gotten sick while I was running away and then he wouldn't have had to slow down for me..."

Spike sits down and puts his face in his claws.

Pinkie walks up solemnly from behind me. She pulls down the hood of her spandex suit and stares at the rubble with me.

I think she noticed something because she starts lifting some concrete out of the way. I help her push a large chunk off a squished cap. My heart stops still I realize that it's not being worn by it's owner. I pick it up with my mouth and shake my head around to get the dust off it.

"Hey look," Spike says and he picks up a golden necklace that was under the hat. I put the hat down and take a look at it. If I remember correctly, he was wearing this very same amulet. It has a hole in it and I realize the gem embedded in it is missing. I look back to the spot Spike picked up the necklace from and see the remnants fragments of a crushed green jewel.

"...I know this necklace," I begin, hope blossoming in my chest. "This is a homeward bound necklace. It's a one time use necklace in which the user can crush it under his foot in order to cast an instant teleportation spell that will take him home!"

Life jumps back into Pink Pie as she starts jumping around in ecstatic joy.

"Oh my gosh does that means that he's still alive and we can throw him the biggest THANK YOU party that Equestria has ever seen?!" She screams.

"But it was found under a piece of the ceiling," Spike says. "The jewel might not have been broken by him."

Pinkie deflates.

"No, it's not over yet. We can still fix this. All of this," I say firmly. The hope has been lit and my mind is acting much more clearly than before.

"Do you remember the whole reason we came here?" I ask my friends.

"...to get the time spell!" Spike exclaims.

"That's right! We have to get to the Starswirl the Bearded wing!"

I grab Spike and throw him onto my back. Pinkie and I gallop back to the open window we first met the unicorn and jumped through the window. Luckily, we don't have to search far for the Starswirl wing is right before us.

But it's behind a caged door.

"Uh oh," I say.

"Try opening it," Pinkie Pie suggests.

"Pinkie it's not just going to-" I say as I try pulling at it. It swings open.

"Huh, it really did open," I say incredulously. It's weird but we don't have time to figure out why the door's unlocked. We step into the wing and groan. The impact of the explosion knocked many of the bookshelves down and there are just scrolls and books lying everywhere. If it was difficult before to find the time spell, it would nearly impossible now.

"Yes!" a voice cries out from further into the section. "I found it!"

I'm startled to find another pony is in here.

The three of us silently step over to the voice and I can't believe my eyes. The sun was now rising to end this long night and it cast it's brilliant rays through the window and onto a dark blue unicorn. Without his cap, I can now see his snow white mane streaked with sky blue cyan and pieces of glass and rubble. He's looking at an ancient piece of slightly curled parchment and has the hugest grin plastered on his face. Then his eyes move up from the scroll to see us and his smile fades.

"You're alive!" Pinkie tackles him and swings him around in utter delight. "OhmygoshIhavethebestideaforapartywecanthrowforyouandtherewillbecakeandballoonsandpinthetailonthepony," she goes on and on.

The stallion looks helpless before the hyperactive mare and I giggle as he tries to escape her hold on him but to no avail. Pinkie suddenly gasps and jumps up, somehow managing to stay up suspended in the air for a few seconds.

"We don't even know your name!" She declared, smushing her cheeks in shock.

"She's right," I finally manage to speak up. "You saved our lives, you have to tell us your name."

The unicorn stallion looks at us uncomfortably.

"Sorry, but you shouldn't thank me," he says darkly, not meeting our eyes.

"Why ever not?" I ask, a little surprised.

"Because the explosion was my fault."


	6. Chapter 6: Blame

Lium's POV

I finally manage to slip the amulet off just as the explosion began, knocking my cap off in the process. I crush the necklace under my hoof triumphantly. A soft warmth touches my back and the mind bending sensation of teleportation swallowed me. When I opened my eyes, I expected to see the familiar old house I spent the past month in. Instead, I am on an elegant balcony overlooking Canterlot.

"Are you harmed?" A familiar voice asks me. I turn around to see that pony I met in my dream in what seems like decades ago.

"Princess Luna," I breathe. She somehow shines with more elegance in person than in my dreams. "But, how? The amulet should have taken me home..." I shake my head, utterly confused. Why was I here with Princess Luna instead?

Suddenly, I remember what Tick Tock told me about Princess Luna and Princess Celestia... how they have to sell me out to Time Twister if they ever find me. I take a step back and look at her wearily. Is she an enemy?

There is a complicated expression on Luna's face. Finally, she sighs and looks out to the moon lying low on the horizon.

"You have nothing to fear from me," she says. "However a great tragedy has befallen tonight here in Canterlot. A great relic has been stolen from my sister's study and she has given chase to the thief. All the guards here have been left incapacitated through some type of befuddlement charm and now I need you to answer this question with complete honesty... What did Tick Tock send you here to do?"

I blinked in surprise, not expecting Tick Tock's name to come up in this situation. There's a gnawing anxiety in my stomach though. The bomb that just exploded and nearly killed me. That purple mare with the crazy hair didn't recognize what it was. None of them did.

But I did because it's something from my own world. Why is such an instrument of destruction being used here of all places?

I look up from my thoughts and see Princess Luna still waiting for an answer.

I couldn't give her one because...

Where's Tick Tock?

That bomb wasn't his doing was it?

I mean it seemed too much of a coincidence that the night he finally takes me out is the night the freaking library explodes from planted bombs and a relic is stolen.

Where's Tick Tock and why didn't he come get me when plans went awry?

Unless.

Unless.

Princess Luna's expression softens to pity and I hate it.

"Tick Tock is not the pony you think he is," she says sadly.

"But," I start, refusing to believe it. "But, he took me in. He gave me food, clothing, shelter.. He was going to teach me magic after tonight! He told me who I was and who you all were.. Was he lying? Was everything he said about my parents all just lies?"

The princess just looks at me awkwardly, unsure of how to comfort me.

"Why was I brought here? He told me go take a spell scroll from the Canterlot library and-"

"Oh no," Luna gasps and next thing I know, she grabs me and we go another round of teleportation.

Our destination is right in front of the Starswirl the Bearded Section of the library. The iron bars stand as firmly in our way as ever. However with a wave of her horn, the door submits and let her through. I follow after her my head aching with half believed betrayal of Tick Tock and suspicions of the dark mare before me.

"Where's the proof?" I ask, watching her dig through the chaotically messy room, items toppled from the impact of the explosion. "What proof is there that Tick Tock stole the relic from you guys?"

"How long have you known Tick Tock?" She does not pause in her search. Is she looking for the time scroll I mentioned?

"About a month," I say, a little embarrassed for some reason. It wasn't even really for a month... I spent most of my time alone at his house. But he showed me trust with his home and belongings and so I felt the same way towards him. Was I just being foolishly gullible?

I start rummaging around as well, reading random titles off the paper before tossing it off the pile.

"Tick Tock is a infamous unicorn thief. He does not strike often, but when he does, he's always successful," Luna explains. "And he always targets items related to time magic. Already he has stolen precious magic that lets him change his appearance to any age he wants which makes for aggravatingly good disguises."

She takes a look at a book title and tosses it into a growing pile of checked items.

"But, the proof..." I say weakly.

"I don't have any proof that it was Tick Tock who caused tonight's incidents. The tools he used is unlike any we have seen before but only he would be foolish and obsessed enough to steal a time relic from here."

"Then how can I believe you?" I ask, halting my search.

"Because I have proof that he is not your friend," Luna also stops looking around. Her face is expressionless.

"The necklace you had may have looked like a homeward bound necklace and he probably told you as much but if I hadn't teleported you out of there, you would have been killed by the explosion."

"No, that can't be," I say, shaking my head in disbelief. But it can. I remember the gentle touch I had felt on my back and it is a fact that I teleported to that balcony, not "home." And the largest piece of discriminating evidence was the pony himself, missing in action.

I sit down and bury my head in my hooves.

Here I am standing before the same question that first plagued me since I got here. The question I thought was answered but now I find that it was only answered by lies.

"Who am I?" I ask in despair. Not to Luna in particular. Just anyone who would know the answer.

"That is a question that only you can know the answer to," Luna says placing her hoof onto my back. It was strangely comforting. A sense of calm washed over the turmoil I felt and I knew that this was nothing new. I can't keep throwing tantrums at every hurdle I face. I was a vulnerable idiot and that's why I eagerly ate up every word Tick Tock fed me. That's my own fault. He gave me what I always craved: a history. Somewhere I that I came from and somewhere that I belong. He gave me a sense of purpose and for that I am thankful.

However, if those bombs are indeed his doing then I have to know why. I need to see him again. Tick Tock may have just lied to me this entire time, but I have to believe that there may have been some truth in his words and stories. I saw it in the occasional sorrow filled expression of a unicorn that's been through shit. I take a deep breathe in and hold it for a few seconds before I exhale deeply. I close my eyes feeling my heart rate return to a steady and relaxed pace.

"Alright," I say opening my eyes. "There's still a lot of stuff that I'm confused about but I want to look at the matter at hand. What is so important about the scroll we are looking for?"

"There is only one time scroll remaining in this section of the library," Luna explains, resuming her search. "All the others have already been stolen. I fear that Tick Tock may have taken this one as well and if he did..."

"What's so important about this scroll? It only let's a pony go back in time for a limited amount of time right?" I ask.

"Because the time loop must be closed. There will be dire consequences if Twilight Sparkle does not go back in time to warn her past self of this impending disaster. If she does not, she would not have come here to Canterlot tonight to find a time stopping spell here, she would not have met you and she would not have barely escaped the explosion with her friends."

"Twilight Sparkle?" I ask. The name sounds as ridiculous as the name Pinkie Pie. "Twilight Sparkle, dark blue gravity defying mane with a stripe of purple and pink? She's a purple mare wearing a ripped catsuit?"

"Er," Luna hesitates. "She does not usually look like that but yes, that is her."

Huh. So that was Twilight Sparkle. That name sounds really familiar though.

"But that doesn't sound so bad," I ponder. "Isn't it better for her and her friends to avoid dangers of tonight?"

"Yes however it does not change the fact that these events have happened. Events cannot be changed through time travel. Things that have happened are written in stone. If Twilight Sparkle does not go back in time to warn her past self, she will not have created the key event that triggered the chain of events that lead her here. Thus, a paradox is created. And the consquences of a paradox are as I said, dire."

She finishes a bookshelf and steps to the other side to continue the search. I pick up a random piece of parchment off a toppled shelf, about to ask her what specifically happens when my eyes catch the title.

"One minute of Time's Past," I whisper. My eyes scan the description of the spell, hardly believing that I found it. With this mess, didn't believe it could be found even if Tick Tock hadn't taken it and I was really just going through the motions rather than actively looking.

"Yes!" I cry out in joy. "I found it!" I shout to alert Luna. When I tear my eyes from the scroll however, I see the Twilight Sparkle we were just talking about with the purple lizard on her back and Pinkie Pie standing right next to her.

Unexpected feelings of guilt well up inside me. These ponies could have all died tonight because of those bombs. Because of Tick Tock. So what does that make me? I ignorantly came here to steal a scroll that might have seriously messed things up for them and for what? The chance to learn magic? My memory echoes the words I heard from someone once before.

Ignorance is a sin.

My thoughts are suddenly interrupted from a full on body tackle equivalent to one given by a professional football player by the pink mare. Before I know it, I'm swung around by my forelegs with such centripetal force that my hind legs have actually left the ground. Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie is screaming intelligible things that I can't understand because she's talking too fast. I am horrified at her strength and when she finally lets me down, she has iron grip on my shoulder as she continues to go on about some sort of party.

Suddenly, she leaps into the air like a startled cat and puts her hooves to her cheeks in horror.

"We don't even know your name!" She declares as if this was the end of the world.

"She's right," the purple mare, Twilight Sparkle agrees, "You saved our lives, you have to tell us your name."

I squirm with guilt. They were all looking at me with eyes full of such gratitude but they didn't know that the bomb that almost killed them probably came from my world. And someone has to take responsibility for it.

"Sorry, but you shouldn't thank me," I say, unable to hold the truth inside me. I look away

"Why ever not?" Twilight asks, her eyes widened.

"Because the explosion was my fault."


	7. Chapter 7 Burdens Lifted and Gained

**Author's Note: Alright so I've been kind of confused with how to portray Luna's speaking patterns since there are times when she switches from her charming olden day style of speech (the thou's and the thy's) to modern day English. She also completely abandons it during the scenes where she appears in dreams so I think it's probably a conscious effort on her part and won't be used during the more serious scenes. Don't worry though, it will be used in the near future. **

"You're fault?" Luna steps out.

"Princess Luna!" Twilight exclaims. "What are you doing here?"

"Before we get into the specifics," Luna starts. She uses her magic to pluck the scroll from and quickly glanced at the contents and nodded. "Here Twilight Sparkle. Quickly read this over and go back in time to warn yourself of the events that have just transpired."

"But-"

"All shall be explained once you return."

Twilight holds her tongue and takes the scroll from Princess Luna.

I watch her eyes go back and forth and it isn't even a full minute before she closes her eyes to focus and she's gone with a faint 'pop'.

A monster inside me churns in envy. She didn't even need to practice and she got the time spell down perfectly. Me on the other hand, had to practice a whole month to learn how to levitate a quill for a few pathetic seconds. I don't have long to wallow in self pity for she returns just moments later looking really depressed.

"Princess Luna... I'm so sorry," her voice is small and it makes her figure looks vulnerable. Seeing her in such a state makes me uncomfortable. "My past self didn't even listen and in the end, I ran out of time before I could tell her anything important. I'm such an idiot! I should have remembered how it went because I did the very same thing in not listening to my future self when she came back to warn me!"

"Do not despair Twilight Sparkle for I sent you to fail to warn yourself," Luna informs. Then she goes to tell them what she told me right before the arrived here. I have to hold back a snigger despite the serious situation because they're wearing such faces of confusion that I myself was surely wearing when Luna was explaining everything to me.

"Now that the most pressing matters have been dealt with, it's time to share some information," Luna glares at me. "There seems to be some things that you have yet to share."

Biting my lip, I begin my tale. I just tell them what I'm sure of, not any of the crap stories that Tick Tock told me (which I'll have to research later to properly see if the brother unicorns ever even existed). I make sure to tell them what bombs are and the terror that they inflict in my own world as well. Honestly, my story sounds like a load of bullshit and I wouldn't be surprised if they burst out laughing right now.

When I finish, they all look pretty deep in thought. Finally, Luna breaks the silence.

"I was aware that there was a portal to a different dimension in the form of a mirror deep within the castle but I did not know there was another one that Tick Tock of all ponies has access to," Luna sighs. "I must tell my sister of the news.

"Woah, there's a portal at your place too?" I ask, suddenly aware of a possible way to go back to my old life.

Luna reads my mind because she shoots my hopes down.

"I doubt that it is your own world. There are indeed creatures in it like you have described but from what I know, they have significant differences. My sister knows more. If the chance ever arises, you may ask her," Luna says. "In fact, we must all talk with my sister. Especially you." She points her hoof at me. "You must tell her all about these weapons from your world so that we create proper countermeasures."

"Alright, when will she be back?" I ask.

"Hopefully she'll be back after capturing Tick Tock any moment now. But she is taking a worrying amount of time

"I still don't understand," Pinkie pipes up. "How is this any of your fault?"

"Someone has to take responsibility. Tick Tock isn't here to take it and I am. Technically, I'm still his assistant. Not to mention that the bomb came from my world. This might sound really egocentric but I feel like... like I gotta atone for all this somehow," I explain, conflicted.

Even as I say it, I know it doesn't make sense. I know that all of this burden should be on Tick Tock. I'm just the poor schmuck who got dragged into this mess. But... I got this sense of attachment to the whole incident. All I have to do is close my eyes and I'll see the burning books, the bomb's timer ticking down, the panic and fear I saw in the eyes of these ponies who almost died. This is something that should have never happened to them. I came here and somehow, I brought the filth of my old world with me.

I remember Jason and my gut wrenches and I wanna puke or something. Yeah.

Just like how the responsibility of Jason's death follows me, I should take the burden of this one as well.

"That's ridiculous!" A voice rings out. I look up and see that it was Twilight who has spoken.

"Just because Tick Tock took advantage of you and you became his assistant doesn't mean that you hold any responsibility to what he did. Did you know what he was planning?"

"No but-"

"And I really don't see how punishing you will make the situation better," Spike adds.

I grimace. He's right. It doesn't make any sense. Truth is, I know anything I do won't make this better. This was more for me. I think some twisted side of me wants to receive punishment. I think that same twisted side thinks that it will make feel better to be punished. Ah frick. I'm starting to think like that emo couple I stayed with once.

"What's your name?" Luna asks me. The question appeared left for me so for a few seconds, I just stared.

"Lium," I say. My last name is meaningless cause I have no family and it was just given to me by the orphanage so I just say my first name.

"Lee-um.." Luna tests out my name and she smiles. "We met in that dream did we not? The one with the ruined landscape."

"Yes," I smile back. "Yes we did."

"Well then Lee-um," Luna begins. "It is admirable that you wish to take responsibility for your master's actions but I see no reason why you must consider him your master any longer."

"I guess?"

She stares at me for a few moments and I squirm uncomfortably at her clear cutting gaze.

"You carry your burdens strangely, Lee-um," Luna finally says.

I don't answer. I'm not sure how to. What does she mean?

"And you carry too much," she says and she steps towards me. I take a step back but my flank meets the bookshelf causing some books to fall.

"Let me lighten your load Lee-um," she says as she lowers her head towards me. Her horn touches mine and a great light shines before everything fades away. The last thing I see the utter look of horror on Luna's face and I know that she knows. She knows.

Twilight's POV

Lium's legs crumble beneath him as soon as Luna's horn touches his. I run to him in surprise but when I hear faint snoring, I relax.

"What did you do to him?" I ask, turning to Princess Luna. For a moment, I thought I saw a different expression on Princess Luna's face but it quickly disappeared into cold stoicism.

Spike pokes him. "He's out cold," he informs me.

"A-a cleansing spell," Luna explains. "He's been blaming himself for too many things and it's warped his mind. I just removed some weight."

"No," Twilight whispers. "You didn't remove his memories did you?"

"I did," Princess Luna confirmed. No sense of regret was on her face. "I had no choice but to. His mind is too weak. He may have looked fine on the outside and he may have felt fine as well but I could see the cracks forming. One more push and he would have been finished."

"But surely there is another way," Twilight argued. "Taking away his memories without even asking?"

"He would have said no," Luna countered. "He would have wanted to continued to torture himself. Twilight Sparkle, I will take responsibility for what I have done. For now, would you please bring him to one of the guest rooms of the castle. When he wakes up, please answer any questions that he may have. I must go now. My sister is has been gone far too long and I worry."

She opens the window and jumps out. I stare at her shrinking figure upon the lightening horizon then turn my gaze at the slumbering dark stallion.

"This is wrong," I say, shaking my head.

"Maybe Princess Luna is right," Spike reasons. "He seemed really... conflicted. Maybe he can take a break and when he's ready, Luna will give his memories back."

"I don't know Spike," I sigh. I use a levitation spell to lift him off the ground.

"Hey Twilight, check this out," Spike says pointing at Lium's flank. "He doesn't have a cutie mark."

"What, no that can't be right," I say, trotting up to see where Spike was pointing. It's true, there is nothing there. I didn't notice in all the chaos but there indeed was no cutie mark to be seen.

"That's it!" I exclaim causing Spike to jump up in surprise.

"W-what?" Spike asks, his claw to his mouth.

"Maybe the reason why he was so unstable is because he hasn't found his direction in life!" I continue, "Maybe if we can help him find his talent, he'll be more happy and Luna can give his memories back! Oh Spike, I'm such a genius!"

Spike had an unsure expression however.

"Well it seems like too simple of answer but I guess it's better than sitting back and doing nothing," Spike sighs.

"Great! Now let's take him to his room and... wait, where's Pinkie Pie?"

Luna's POV

I take flight. I had need to escape that confined space and embrace the fresh morning air.

I do not know what to think. I feel ill. Taking the memories of another is a tiring experience, even more so if their experiences have been traumatic. You live through all the emotions, all the sensations they ever felt in the span of seconds. Images from his memories flash in my mind and I flinch. I do not think I can ever look at Lee-um the same way again.

I make a silent vow to never give him back his memories. He will live as a completely new pony here.

"It was his experiences that twisted him," I quietly say to myself. "He is not naturally like that. He is kind and caring."

I catch a draft and soar higher.

He will never turn out like he did here in Equestria. I will not let him. Red stains my vision as I search for my sister.


	8. Chapter 8 A Gift Of Friendship

Lium's POV

A hollow scream reverberates in my ears. Then another, and another until it is a whole chorus of emptyness hitting me like a tsunami of sound.

I open my eyes, crying.

I have lost something precious and I feel the gaping hole inside me somewhere. What did I lose? Slowly, as my eyes adjust to my surroundings, the intense feelings of loss fade and I wipe my tears unable to discern why I was crying.

I am in an elegant room. Sunshine is pouring into the room, illuminating all the furniture. An antique desk sits in the corner with a stack of paper and a quill patiently waiting for it to be used. The walls are a mellow shade of sunshine and someone painted a wonderful mural of the ocean and little ships with great white sails dancing on the water and rays of the sun. A wooden wardrobe lies across the room, the door slightly ajar to reveal that nothing is inside.

I myself am lying on a grand bed with so many pillows my body is half covered with them.

"Where am I?" I twitch at the sound of my own voice which sounds so unfamiliar.

I try to think but my mind feels... strange. It feels rather light and empty and I can't seem to remember if it has always felt this way or if it's just an off day.

Then I hear muffled voices from outside the door. I jump off the bed onto my feet and-

fall flat onto my face.

"Ow..." I groan into the marble floor. It feels nice and cool to touch with my warm face. I get up and look down at my body.

I feel a little confused.

My body is dark blue and I seem to have four legs but I can't remember if this is how I have always looked.

I try raising my right hoof and examine it closely. I touch my face with it.

A memory comes.

"That's right... I'm a human," I whisper to myself. "But then I got turned into a pony and,"

But how? How did I turn into a pony? When I reach into my mind for the memory, it's not there.

"M-my name is Lium," I confirm with myself. I start nodding as more and more of my life returns to me. "My name is Lium and I grew up at the Devonshire Boy's Home. Blank. I met my best friend Jason on a park bench. Blank. I-"

My vision cuts into red and I scream silently in pain. My head is throbbing with confusion. This is wrong. Why can't I remember? Why is everything so disconnected? I see faces and names swirling around and voices and even music but nothing is making sense.

I hear distorted voices again and I think I've gone crazy until I hear that they are coming behind the door to my right. I stumble towards it and the voices gets clearer.

"-ry Pinkie but now's really not the best time for a party."

"But I went all the way back to Ponyville to get my party cannon! We can't just not throw a party when I got the best one ever ready!"

"No Pinkie. Lium is going to be very confused when he wakes up and a party is just going to confuse him even more."

The voices sound familiar. I grope into my mind for names but they remain just out of reach.

"I know these voices," I say under my breath. Then curiosity takes hold of me as I push open the door and the voices abruptly stop.

The first pony I see is pink. She has a wild curly pink mane and a smile so large it scares me. There's a bit of a lag but I realize I know this pony.

"Pinkie Pie," I point. I take a look at the other pony and she seems really familiar as well but I can't put a name to her.

"Hey, he remembers me!" Pinkie Pie exclaims excitedly.

"Princess Luna must have only took specific memories," the other mare explains. "Do you remember me?"

I take a closer look at her. Her mane is dark blue with a stripe of purple and pink and her bangs are cut straight across her forehead. A little horn pokes out.

"I feel like we've met but at same time I feel like we haven't," I say shaking my head. She looks a little hurt and I feel sorry for not remembering her.

"Wait!" Pinkie Pie shrieks. She jumps towards her friend and in a tornado of Pinkie magic, she is changed.

"Twilight Sparkle!" I yell recognizing that crazy mane and eyepatch from anywhere.

"Oh," Twilight blushes. "I forgot this is how we met."

She quickly removes the Pinkie magic and returns to her mane to its previous tamed state.

"What's going on?" I ask her

I suddenly feeling an inexplicable sense of fear. "I know you two but I don't know how we met."

"Don't worry Lium," Twilight assures me. "We'll tell you everything we can."

I'm on a balcony staring at the setting sun. I didn't realize it before in the chaotic state of my mind the set of windows in my room were actually doors that opened up to this semi-circle balcony. It was pretty fancy stuff. The handrails were made of gold for goodness sakes. I considered trying to pry them off but if they can have such luxuries in this world, it's probably not worth much here anyways.

I asked to be alone after Twilight and Pinkie Pie explained the most recent events. They told me about how I met them, about Tick Tock and the bombs, about the close shave we all had from being blown to bits, meeting Princess Luna, and how that same princess stole some of my memories.

I can't tell how I feel about that. I should feel angry right? She has invaded my mind and stole pieces of it.

I don't know.

Because right now I feel a sense of liberation that I just know I did not have before. And it scares me to ask for something back that I know will ruin me, the me that I am right now.

I am ready to leave my old life behind and live this new one. I am ready.

One question still remains in the back of my head though. A question I can't ignore.

What happened to Jason?

"How are you feeling?" Twilight asks as she comes up behind me.

"Conflicted," I admit. "One side of me wants my memories back and the other says I'm better off without them."

The sun sinks lower and the world grows darker. I like it better like this. I don't need to see anything. I can just live with my eyes closed. Wouldn't that be better?

"Do you know what I do when I'm feeling down?" She asks me. I shake my head.

"I study," she replied.

I stare at her, trying to figure out if she was pulling my tail or not.

"You're joking right?" I ask incredulously. She looks offended.

"Do you think I would joke in a situation like this?"

"I don't know you too well so maybe?" I reply.

"Well I'm not joking," she huffs. "Even when the world seems to falling under your hooves, there are still things that will always remain a constant. Studying these things helps you realize that."

She brings out a book from her bag.

I take it into my hooves and see how worn it is from the countless times it has been read.

"Legends of Equestria?" I read the title.

"This is one of the very first books I ever received as a present. It was a gift from my brother," she smiles as she reminisces. "I've read it so many times I've memorized it. Now I want to give it to you."

I stare at the book and it feels heavy with precious memories. I try to push it back to her.

"No," I say. "I can't accept this gift. It's worth too much."

"Please," she says, gently pushing it back. "I want to give it to you. Not only as a thank you but as symbol of our new friendship."

"Friendship?" I repeat a little dumbly.

Twilight nodds.

Have I ever had a friend besides Jason?

And then suddenly I am suddenly aware of her as if she had just materialized into this world. Her amethyst eyes steal the last sparkles of the sun as it disappears and makes way for the moon and I am mesmerized by her very existence.

"Thank you," I whisper, hugging the book to my chest. "Thank you very much."

"It's no problem at all," Twilight smiles, completely oblivious to the change she has made to me at this very moment in time.

And then we talk.

She tells me about herself, where she was born, where she grew up. She talked about how she became Celestia's student and earned her cutie mark at the same time. When I asked her what a cutie mark is, she showed me her flank which adorned a six point pink star with five little white stars encircling it.

"Does everypony have a cutie mark?" I ask, looking at my own empty flank insecurely.

"Don't worry," Twilight assures me. "You'll find your special talent in no time!"

I nod and relaxed.

We continue talking, and she tells me about her friends who all sound like wonderful ponies. Rarity, a fashionista with a heart of gold, Applejack, a hardworking apple bucker who is both honest and true. Rainbow Dash, a pegasus who may be a bit cocky at times but will never let you down when you need her and Fluttershy whose shyness and kindness was as strong as her love for animals.

"I'd love to meet them sometime," I say, truly meaning it and Twilight grins proudly.

A twinge of jealousy echoes in my chest but I ignore it.

When I start telling her about myself the moon is already high in the sky. My life wasn't anything special and there are bunch of holes in my stories but she listens patiently and intently, asking so many questions about my original home. Her curiousity charms me and sparks my own interest in her life. Soon we are trading stories until we can barely keep our eyes open and I'm not sure when exactly we drift off, but I think it was in the middle of her story where she and her friends dressed up as superheroes to save the town and knock down Rainbow Dash's ego or when I told her about the time Jason and I tried to hitch hike to Alaska from California with the money we saved up from some minimum wage jobs.

The next time I open my eyes, I am greeted with the sleeping face of Twilight Sparkle illuminated by moonlight. I look around and see that it has long past the middle of the night and I had fallen asleep with the book still held tightly in my forelegs.

"Have you slept well?" A voice asks me from the depth of the night. I barely keep in my surprise as Princess Luna seems to materilize out of nowhere.

"Um, well I guess," I respond half heartedly. I actually feel strangely awake even though I have been up the entire day and most of the night.

Luna looks at me strangely. She paces around me, observing me silently.

Then she turns her head to Twilight who is sleeping beside me. Suddenly, I feel embarassed.

Before I can explain myself, Luna raises her hoof to stop me.

"WE HAVE COME TO SEEK THOUST ANSWER TO OUR QUESTION!" Her soft voice has now been replaced with volume unrestricted and the sound rattles me to the core with surprise. It's not just her shouting, it's like she's speaking through an amplifier and it's freaking the hell out of me.

"LEE-UM! TELL US WHAT THOU THINK OF THIS NIGHT?" She shouts, gesturing at the view of night time Canterlot.

"Um, can you speak a little quieter?" I politely ask of her. "Twilight is still sleeping and I think you might wake her if you don't start whispering."

In fact, I'm surprised that Twilight isn't already up and flipping out over this atrocious intrusion the peace.

"Do not worry of Twilight Sparkle Lee-um," Luna says but she still lowers to an inside voice volume. "We are in but a dream thus there is no chance of Twilight Sparkle awakening."

"Oh, I see," I frown. "So what are you here for again?"

"We have come to ask what you think of the night," Luna asks.

The question seems kind of random but she seems to be expecting a certain kind of answer so I scratch my head and start seriously contemplating.

"This night?" I ask.

"Yes, this night. And all the nights here."

"Er," I take a look out onto the dark city of Canterlot. Only a few houses lights are on. The rest of city lies in pitch darkness. I turn my focus up to the heavens. A full moon shines tonight and countless stars boldly accompany it. It's a breathtaking sight and I wish that I knew some constellations so that I could pick them out in this sky.

"...lonely," I finally say.

"Lonely?" Luna repeats, her head tilted. She didn't seem to have expected my answer which increases my nervousness. "What do you mean?"

"Back in my old world," I explain. "A different part of the city would wake up at night. That was the part that I mingled with the most. But here," I look out to the sleeping city. "They all just go to sleep."

I look back to Princess Luna, about to ask if I had given her the correct answer but her expression stops me.

"Why are you smiling," I ask. It's a small smile, shy but beautiful. Sad but knowing.

"It is nothing," Luna says and she spreads her wings and I awake.

"I will come again."

Twilight's sleeping face greets me and I get a strong sense of deja vu. I look around but there is no Luna. The book clutched tightly to my chest catches my attention and I lay it down and turn to the very first page.

The moonlight is strong tonight and it graciously lends its light to help me read.

"Alright, first story," I whisper to my self. "A story of two unicorn brothers of fire and ice."


	9. Chapter 9: The Decision

I was on the second last page when Twilight opened her eyes and let out a long yawn while she rubbed her eyes. For a few seconds, she seems confused as to where she is. I wave at her a little awkwardly and she smiles. It might just be color of the rising on her face but it also kind of looks like she is blushing.

"Oh no!" She suddenly shouts and causes me to jump up to my hooves.

"What's wrong?" I ask, concerned.

"Spike must be so worried," she explains rushing back into the room. "I didn't tell him that I was going to stay out tonight."

She opens the door about to rush out but before she leaves, she turns around and smiles.

"I had a great time yesterday. If you aren't too busy do you want me to show you around Canterlot today?"

"Uh yeah," I say trying to hide my excitement. "Yeah, that sounds great!"

"Alright, meet us in front of the castle at noon then," she closes the door behind her and I fall onto my back. There was a weird bubbling feeling in my chest and I start rolling around the floor to get it out. Instead it gets stronger.

I give up and walk out back to the balcony. An easy breeze blows and I return to the book. The stories were like the tales back home with little lessons to be learned and I found them all extremely endearing to read. I finally finished the last story of the Ursa Minor finding his way back to the Ursa Major and a smile creeps onto my face at the happy ending.

Then I pass out from the lack of sleep.

Some time later, I'm half pulled from my unconsciousness by someone shaking me. I move around a bit but then fall back into deep sleep. I hear the buzzing of voices from far away and then-

"WAKE UP!"

"Graghhh!" I wake up and scramble away from that horrible source of eardrum blowing madness and hit my head on a solid object behind me and cry out in pain. When my eyes adjust, I see Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie and Spike all staring at me with little smirks on their faces. Pinkie Pie is holding a megaphone. I blush and then remember my promise to Twilight.

"Oh shit, what time is it?" I ask hurriedly, taking a look at the position of the sun in the sky. It has long passed it's midway mark in the sky. I groan and bury my head in my hooves.

"I'm so sorry!" I apologize earnestly.

"Oh it's fine," Twilight waves me off. "We didn't wait that long before we went to go and see what was holding you up."

"And that really isn't the most pressing issue," Spike says pointing back to my room. "You might want to check out what your fire salamander's been up to.

My fire salamander?

My mind brings forth the image of glowing red little lizard jumping onto my back. Then another moving image of it spitting it's green goo that spontaneously bursts into flames when it contacts a solid object.

"Oh no."

I gallop into my room to see my desk is gone in a pile of broken debris and the wardrobe on its side and flaming. The lizard munched contently on the flames, bite by bite as if he had all the time in the world.

I groan. Great, now I have more things to be sorry for.

"Hey," I shout out to the lizard. It ignores me and still keeps chewing.

"Did I ever give it a name?" I ask the other ponies.

"We don't know," Twilight says.

"Ooh! Ooh! Can we name him then?" Pinkie Pie jumps up and down in excitement towards the lizard. "Gummy the second!"

The lizard turns away his head pompously.

"Hm, how about Bluey then?" Pinkie Pie asks. The lizard shakes his head.

"He's red Pinkie," Twilight states.

"That doesn't mean he can't be blue!"

"Jason," I murmur.

"Jason? What kind of name is that? I think he looks more like a Smorgo," Pinkie continues her rampage of word vomit she calls names but there is recognition in Twilight's eyes at the name.

I on the other hand walk up to the lizard and repeat myself.

"Jason."

The lizard looks at me with its unblinking eyes, dark and slitted. He flicks a little tongue over his scaly lips and runs over the last remains of the fire, effectively extinguishing it.

"Jason it is then," I smile. He hops onto my back and makes himself comfortable. An ache sits in my heart.

Where is the original Jason? It is obvious that something happened involving him and it seems that it was part of the memories that Princess Luna has taken. It is the only question I care about and I am determined to get my answers the next time I see her.

"Aw," Pinkie whines in disappointment. "I was really feeling it from 'Gummy the second'."

I nod and look at the destruction Jason the lizard has caused.

"We'll help you clean up," Twilight suggests and the two behind her nod.

"Thanks," I say gratefully.

We start sweeping up the mess and Twilight assures me that it will be easy to bring in replacement furniture. It doesn't help ease the guilt I feel but I smile and thank her.

"So I hear you don't have a cutie mark and that we're going out to help you find your special talent today!" Pinkie bursts out like she's been holding it in for the entire duration of time she has been here.

I look at Twilight and she shrinks away smiling awkwardly.

"Oh sorry, didn't mean to glare at you," I apologize. "So we're going out to get myself a cutie mark today?"

I can't say I'm not disappointed. I kind of thought it was just going to be Twilight and me but those hopes were blown away when I saw Pinkie and Spike. Now the news is broken that the point of exploring the town was to get me a cutie mark. I shake my head to break me out of my pessimistic thoughts.

I should be grateful that I get to hang out with at all since I slept in and missed the meeting time. On top of that, she's helping me get a cutie mark. I look at Pinkie's flank and see a triplet of balloons, two blue and one yellow.

"So does your cutie mark mean you're good at blowing balloons?" I ask Pinkie, a little unsure if that can be considered a talent.

"Haha no silly! It means that I throw the best parties ever!" She laughs and pops some party crackers she pulled out of nowhere and it rains confetti. I look at Spike and search his body.

"Where's your cutie mark?" I ask.

"I don't have one," he informs. "Only ponies have em."

"Oh," I say, feeling a little sorry for him.

"Ah don't worry about it," Spike grins. "I can breathe fire and that's a lot cooler than some cutie mark!"

He blows a burst of beautiful green flames and Jason jumps off my back and inhales all of it down his tiny throat. He lands on Spike's head and burps. Spike chuckles and pets Jason's bumpy body.

"Alright then," I say clapping my hooves together. "So where do we go to get one?"

Twilight looks at me and giggles as if I head something funny.

"Sorry Lium but there's no specific place where you can get a cutie mark," she explains. "When you find it, it'll just appear."

"Wait," I say raising my hooves to hold up the situation. "Cutie marks aren't just tattoos or something?"

"What are tattoos?"

"Okay that answers the question."

Awesome job Lium, you embarrassed yourself grandly there. I seriously can't believe I thought they were just butt tattoos.

Sighing, I follow them out of the castle into the bustling city of Canterlot. It's a pleasant place. I scarf down three dandelion sandwiches (learned that they don't eat meat here) at a small but busy cafe on a corner of the streets and we try out various activities to see if I have any infinity with them. While we walk, I check out other passing ponies to see if they all have cutie marks and to my dismay they do. I see no other blank flank in this town but mine.

At the music store I try the cello, trumpet, clarinet, guitar, piano, drums and eventually I just rage quit and leave the shop angrily wondering how anypony could use these clunky hooves to play an instrument. Twilight and Pinkie are undeterred however as they lead me to the next store which is a clothing store.

"I don't understand what skill I could possibly have here," I tell them.

"They're mares so you just go along with it," he whispers to me behind his claw. I nod at his wisdom and we step into the store. I actually have quite a bit of fun in there because Pinkie Pie makes a bunch of hilarious wardrobe combinations that make us all burst into laughter until we're kicked out of the store. My mood lifts and soon, I'm eagerly seeking out places as well. Before we know it, the day is over and we are heading back to the castle hot and sweaty. As much fun as I had today, I can't help but feel a little disappointed no cutie mark appeared on my flank.

"We might have been rushing things," Twilight says, noticing my disheartened face. "This reminds me of three fillies back in Ponyville who don't have cutie marks either. They formed a group called the Cutiemark Crusaders and have dedicated themselves to finding their own individual talents. In all the excitement I forgot the advice I gave them: you can't force a cutie mark to come before it's time. Don't worry Lium, your cutie mark will appear when you're ready."

I nod and smile. It's strange. Something about this mare just makes me want to smile and feel like everything is going to be okay.

When we arrive back at the castle and about to split up to return to our own rooms, Twilight calls out to me.

"Hey Lium, we're actually planning to go back to Ponyville tomorrow morning," she starts.

I try to hide the disappointment I felt. I barely spent any time with them and yet they already had to leave?

"Would you like to come with us?" She finishes.

I blink once. Then twice.

"Like, move to Ponyville?" I ask, dumbfounded.

She nods bashfully.

"Of- of course!" I exclaim, happy enough to fly if I had wings.

Relief fills her face and she smiles that amazing smile of hers.

"Great! Meet us at the front of the castle tomorrow at dawn then and don't sleep in this time!" She winks and leaves.

I go back to my own room and I feel a big silly grin on my face.

Exhausted but ecstatic, I fall on to the bed and deeply ingrain into my brain the message that I need to wake up early tomorrow. The last thing I see before I slip off into oblivion is Jason crawling off my head and curling up next to me.

The first thing I feel is the coolness and wetness of the night. The next thing is the smell of brine. Then I hear the crashing of water. I open my eyes and see darkness undistinguished. I take another deeper breathe in and I know it's the ocean. Ancient and threatening, the ocean lies within the darkness within this empty night.

"Where's the moon?"

My voice echoes.

"Does thou wishest for the moon?"

Without turning around, I know that it is Princess Luna.

I pause.

"Yes, I think a moon would be a great touch," I reply. I say it lightly but a moon is desperately needed here. Without it, this nothingness would swallow me whole.

"Then thou must create it thouself," Luna's voice tells me.

I frown.

"How?"

"Will it," she says.

I hesitate but I close my eyes and I imagine a moon, large and bright appearing in the sky. For some reason, it's much harder then I expect it to me, like somehow, I have forgotten what the moon looks like. I keep reaching for the image and it keeps slipping through my grasp. I'm relentless and keep trying, once, twice, five times, twenty until I feel a tug in my horn.

Memories echo behind me and a past voice reaches me, complaining about what hornstrings are. I smile, feeling the gentle tug in my horn and I realizing that I know what a hornstring is now.

When I open my eyes, a small light floats in the sky. It is no bigger then a speck of starlight but I can feel it growing. With every breath I take, it expands and soon it is large enough to illuminate my entire dream. I now see the ocean, no longer blackness but dark blue with the waters sparkling magically of moonlight.

"Well done," Luna compliments me. I can see her now too, her mane of stars and night sky fluttering in this breezeless dream.

"Thanks," I say bashfully. It isn't often that I get complimented and it feels a little weird to be receiving it from Luna of all ponies.

"That was the final test," Luna states, smiling gently. "And you have passed it wonderfully."

"I was being tested?" I'm surprised. Also, that word doesn't have any good connotations with me.

"Yes," Luna confirms. "Tonight's dream is a bit special you see."

She and I look upon the grand scenery, the waves crashing on the black sand and the moon sitting in an empty sky devoid of stars.

"I gave you an empty dream. Everything you see before you has been created by your own mind."

"Don't people usually do that?" I ask, not seeing how that could really act as a test.

"No, dreams are from memories," she says wistfully. "Ponies pluck images from their memories and that is where they dream. This," she waves at the dreamscape, "has all been created by scratch from your own mind. Every little ripple and wave, and that lovely moon you have drawn has been brought into existence from no one else but you."

It really isn't much compared to the real places I've ever seen before but I still feel a sense of pride looking at this dark ocean overlooked by only one light.

"You have passed my test," Luna announces once more. "And now I wish for you to become my student."

My mouth drops.

"Huh? Come again?" I ask.

Princess Luna patiently repeats herself.

"I wish for you to become my student Lee-um."

My mind processes what she says all too slowly and I'm afraid I misunderstood her.

"I don't understand," I tell her, "why of all people- ponies, do you want me as your student?"

"Because you understand my night," she sighs.

I don't know how to respond. Was this all because of my answer yesterday?

"Do you know my story Lee-um?" Luna starts. I read of her legend in the book Twilight had given me of her banishment to the moon after she turned into some evil version of herself but I get the feeling that is not the tale she is talking about.

"My sister always shined brighter than I," Luna continues. "From the moment I was born I have always lived in the shadow that she has cast. Though it hurt being constantly compared with her, what caused me the most pain was her inability to understand me and the unrelenting patience and kindness she continued to show me. It always made me realize how... ugly my own feelings were. Those same feelings eventually took over me and I became Nightmare Moon."

This was an important moment I realized. The moment where Luna cuts herself open and shows me how she ticks, how she functions. I'm not sure if I can handle it.

"The scariest thing is that while I was Nightmare Moon, I had lost the love I had for my sister along with all moral obligations... and I didn't care. Every second I spent in that form, I fell more and more in love with the power I had gained. Even when I was sealed up in the moon, I plotted for a thousand years for my escape, revenge fueling me like a twisted disease." Luna dips her head down as if all the sorrow was too heavy for her. I feel helpless to comfort her so I just watch her, useless as a pebble.

"It's a miracle that nopony died for while I was Nightmare Moon, I was truly capable of taking life."

"But," I hate bringing this up, I really do but I'm too stupid to connect the dots myself. "I still don't get why you want me to be your apprentice."

"You called my night lonely," her tone suddenly accusive.

"Oh, I-I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings or anything," I splutter defensively.

"No, you made me realize the emotion that has been following me for a thousand years and more, ever since I was born. When the time came to choose our domains, I easily chose the night because I felt a connection with it. I knew we were one and the same because the night is indeed lonely."

Her ears droop. Avoiding my eyes, she looks up to the moon. The moon in an empty night sky.

"I want you to be my apprentice because you are the same as I. You returned from your own darkness and though it nearly crippled you, you survived. I never thought I'd take in a student, but if I do, I want him to have the same strength that you have."

"I.. I ran away," I confess. "I'm not being strong. Even now I'm too scared to ask for my memories back because I know whatever I get back will break me. I'm a coward. I hate myself because I'm a horrible coward!"

I feel tears coming but no. No I will not cry here! My breathing starts getting eratic as I struggle for control of my body but it's no use, I feel myself slipping and..

A gentle hoof touches me and I flinch, causing it to withdraw tentatively. It was enough to ground me however and my breathing calmed.

"...sorry," I mumble after I had properly chilled out. Shame hung around me like the plague. I can't even look at her anymore.

"Raise your head," she asks. I don't move.

"Please," her voice breaks and I look at her. Her clear eyes are clouded over with sadness that melts with my own.

"I won't rush you," she says quietly. "Make your decision when you are ready. Just call in your next dream and I shall come."

She readies to leave, spreading her wings like the angel of the night that she is. Twilight flashes in my mind and her invitation to come with her to live in Ponyville. I think of all the trials she has gone as a student of Celestia and her incredible skills in both magic and the ability to gravitate others towards her. Myself included.

And I realize at that moment that I admire her, no more than that... And the way I am right now, I'm the last pony that deserves to be with her.

"I'm no good at magic you know!" I blurt, staring at the black grainy sand. The memory of spending a month on levitation magic returning to me.

"You can improve," Luna says. "And at least you don't give up."

"I get depressed easily too," I continue, my voice broken.

"So do I."

"I don't know if I can make you proud."

"That is never something I'd let you worry about."

The waves start to slow down, no longer crashing against the shore but instead greeting it peacefully.

"Please let me be your student," I finally say, raising the courage to look at her.

Her smile is brighter than any sun that Celestia can raise.

**Author's Note: I know that Flash really won't make much of an appearance in at least a few chapters since we're still at the end of season two in the timeline and I gotta apologize for that since the promised triangle will be delayed till he comes out. **

**Xorobukkit: Thanks for the reviews and feedback. As for your most recent question, nope the first seven chapters have a point. I'm hoping to create a proper conflict with Lium and his past and the courage he'll need to face it. It's always a choice and he gets to make it. The time he spent with Tick Tock will come into play later on as well. **


	10. Chapter 10 Turned Events

I wake up far before dawn and for a few moments I just lie in my bed thinking about what I needed to do.

I have to change, that much is evident. I want to become a pony that Luna won't be ashamed to have as a student and I want to become a friend that Twilight would be proud to know. I want her to talk about me to her other friends like she how she talks about her friends back in Ponyville.

Maybe even a little more fondly, a little voice whispers in the back of my mind but I shut it out.

I finally get up, leaving Jason the fire salamander peacefully slumbering under the bed sheets and pillows. Sleepiness still stains my movements as I sluggishly drag myself to the balcony to get some fresh air.

"I'm going to do this," I say out loud. "I'm going to become the best pony that I can be and more! I'm going to master magic!"

I start stretching out my limbs and awkwardly trying out pushups but it doesn't work out well since I naturally walk on four legs now. So instead I just jump up and down and lift my front legs up to do some squats. I don't do much but I soon run out of breathe and collapse onto the floor.

"Damn, I really got out of shape," I groan. I silently vowed to go for a run later to get back into the game.

The sky is still dark when I start making my way to the front of the castle. It's a bit too soon to meet up but I want to go early and prep what I want to say to Twilight.

"Hey, Twilight," I start out. "I'm Luna's student now so I can't go to Ponyville with you. Sorry."

No, no, that sounds wrong. How about:

"Princess Luna asked me to be her student and I just couldn't say no."

No that is lying, I was given a choice.

"I'm a princess' student now just like you! Yay!"

Nope.

"It's emergency! Princess Luna's pet cat has died and she really needs a pony to help with her grief."

Wow I was nowhere near the truth with that one. I don't even know if she has a pet.

"Agh what the hell do I say?!" I shout out in frustration to the heavens.

"Are you okay?" A voice asks me. I turn around to see Spike looking at me concerned.

I blush heavily.

"Um, yeah, I'm fine," I say awkwardly. "Where's Twilight and Pinkie Pie?" I attempt to change the subject.

"Oh they sent me ahead to tell you that they'll be a little late," Spike explains.

"I see."

There's a brief moment of silence before Spike clears his throat.

"So what was that all about earlier?"

"Oh just me acting like an idiot," I sigh. "Hey Spike, you've known Twilight all your life right?"

"Yeah, I'm assuming she told how I was born?" Spike says.

I nod.

"Some circumstances came up and I won't be able to go to Ponyville with you guys.. How do you think she'll take the news?" I ask nervously.

"Oh don't worry about it," Spikes assures me offhandedly. "Twilight's really understanding so if you have a good reason for not being able to go, she'll completely understand."

"Oh," I blink. "Oh that's good."

I guess I was getting myself worked up over nothing. I realized my shoulders slumped over for some reason so I straighten myself off and cough.

Too soon I hear the shrill and happy voice of Pinkie Pie jumping towards us with Twilight close behind her.

"Sorry we're late!" Pinkie cries out waving her hoof in her over energized way. I can't help but smile. She really has that way with ponies.

I wave back.

"We saw Princess Celestia on our way here," Pinkie explains.

"Oh cool," I reply. I suppose I'd be meeting her soon as well.

"And we heard that your Princess Luna's new student!" She screams and hugs me.

"Oh you already heard?" I reply, a little disappointed since I wanted to be the one to tell them the news.

"Congratulations Lium!" I didn't notice it before because she was dragging it behind her but she pulls out a huge blue cannon and it explodes in the confetti and good cheer.

I laugh and thank her.

Then I look over her shoulder and see Twilight being a bit quieter than usual. Her facial expression is one of distractedness. I walk up to her and poke her shoulder.

"Hey," I greet her with smile.

She doesn't return it. Instead she looks at me sadly and confused like she's not really sure how to act around me.

"Hi, I heard the news," she says, attempting to sound cheerful but failing. "Congratulations."

"Thanks..." I say quietly. I'm not sure why her attitude towards me has taken such a drastic turn but it hurts.

"I know that this means that I can't go to Ponyville with you guys but I figured that I could always come and visit when I get established here and... What's wrong? "

My voice breaks off. There are faint traces suspicion in her face and I don't know what I did to earn her mistrust.

"Oh Princess Celestia just mrmghd merhg-" Pinkie starts but is immediately cut off by Twilight.

"It's nothing," Twilight forces a smile. "We really got to go catch that train now so we'll be on our way. Bye." Right before she turns around, I see her face slack into confusion and she leaves with Pinkie in tow. Pinkie sadly waves goodbye with Twilight's hoof still clamped tightly over her mouth and Spike follows them with an apologetic expression on his face.

"Bye," he shouts.

"Bye," my voice small.

What was that?

I just kept standing there unable to comprehend what just happened. It was all sunshine and daisies yesterday wasn't it? How has things changed so drastically overnight?

Does Twilight hate me now?

How though? Was it because I became Luna's student? I don't understand how that warrants any hatred though.

"Wait," I murmur softly to myself, the gears in my head are turning.

When Pinkie Pie tried to answer my question, she mentioned Princess Celestia and they were late today because they were meeting her right?

And I know how much Twilight fawns over the princess; I can tell from how her tone changes into one of total admiration whenever she talks about her. Could her sudden change of attitude be due to princess of the sun?

I have to know. I gallop back into the castle and I immediately bump into an alicorn that I realize must be Princess Celestia. Her multi-coloured mane, like Luna's, floats in ripples to the side of her head despite the lack of wind. A large tiara/crown sits behind the longest horn I've ever seen on a pony yet. Her white body towers over me and I understood at this moment what Luna meant about living in her sister's shadow all her life. Any pony who met her would be forced into her shadow whether they wanted to or not.

"You must be Lium," Princess Celestia says, her voice cold enough to send shivers down my spine.

I move my head up and down slowly in affirmation, unable to pull my eyes away from her relentless glare. She opens her mouth as if to say something but then thinks better of it and closes her mouth.

"I love my sister," she finally says. I'm not sure what she's getting at so I let her continue. "And for her own reasons, she decided to take you as her student. I will respect that decision. But," and she says the but as if it's only thing that mattered. "I suggest you get your act together as soon as possible and lift those burdens you have left upon Luna."

Then she just walks away. Her words hit me hard and once I again, I just find myself frozen on my hooves. I can't even make a comment about how that was the "kind and caring" Celestia I heard so much about because she hit me right where it hurts.

My selfish cowardice.

"She's right," I murmur to myself, making my way slowly to my room. "I have to get my act together."

I step into my room all sense of previous excitement efficiently murdered and loneliness quickly taking its place.

Mentally drained, I go to sleep both hoping that I can meet Luna in my dreams to apologize and that I never wake up again.

Twilight's POV

"What the heck was that Twilight?" the purple dragon exclaimed when they finally settled down onto the train. "Something tells me that wasn't because he broke your promise to come back to Ponyville with us."

"I- I honestly don't know what to think Spike," Twilight shakes her head in obvious distress. "I've never seen Princess Celestia have such- such negativity towards a pony before."

"Ooh yeah, she was not a happy princess when she we told her we were going to go meet up with Lium," Pinkie added chewing on a cupcake.

"And she even specifically told me not talk to Lium any more than what was necessary!" Twilight yells, raising her hooves up. "I don't understand it Spike... Princess Celestia obviously has her reasons but Lium is one of the nicest ponies I've met. He saved our flanks not too long ago either and I can't see why Princess Celestia would possibly have any reason to... to detest him so much!"

"Princess Celestia hating a pony?" Spike shakes his head. "Are we talking about the same princess here?"

"Yup!" Pinkie confirms. "She definitely hated Lium."

"I think you really hurt his feelings though Twilight," Spike says, holding his tail.

"I know Spike... I feel really bad about it too but I've only known Lium for a few days and I've known Princess Celestia for more than half my life. I think I have to trust Princess Celestia's judgement on this," Twilight sighs, looking at the train station through the window as the final passengers board the train.

Spike frowns for a bit.

"But what's your judgement on this Twilight?" He asks but Twilight doesn't answer.

Princess Luna's POV

I silently walk through the hallways of the castle. Guards salute me at their posts and I curtly nod back to acknowledge their good work. The night is over and thus it is time for my rest. When I open the doors to my chambers and then close them behind me, I let myself collapse onto my dark bed sheets of satin and silks and feel the corners of my mouth reaching up into a unstoppable smile.

"No, calm yourself Luna," I command myself, still unable to halt this invincible expression of joy. "He has only said yes a few hours ago. There is much to teach him of the night."

But the happiness I feel cannot be quelled with mere words. Finally, I have another to share the wonders of the night with. Finally, there is another who can truly appreciate all the beauty and mystery the night has to offer.

I remember his own night that he had created in his dreams and the moon that shone so bright and proudly in his dark sky. A moon that called out to me and pulled at my heartstrings.

Suddenly, my head splits open as my vision fills with blood. I cry out in pain, tears flowing non-stop from my eyes. I start shaking, and I desperately grab a pillow to just hold onto something, anything. I don't how long it is until the fit passes and at some point, my sister had entered my room.

"Luna..." she says, her face deeply concerned.

"I'm fine sister," I assure her with a tired smile and a raised hoof.

She doesn't say anything but I see the pain in her face from being unable to help me. It is fine for I do not need any help. I let my eyes close, a dull steady ache in the back of my head is all that remains of the intensity I felt before and it acts as a soothing lullaby to send me to my own dreamland.

A warm hoof touches my forehead and I hear a whisper in my ear before I completely drift off from this realm of consciousness.

"I'll protect you Luna."


	11. Chapter 11 Learning and Bonding

Have you ever felt someone's presence while you were sleeping. Like you're not awake but you are aware that someone is stepping up to you. And have ever had a flash of mischievousness and immaturity take over and you unconsciously decide to scare the crap out of said someone?

Well that's what I did.

"BOO!" I scream, scrambling to raise my hooves for extra effect. I hear a really high pitched squeaking sound and the dark figure falls onto his butt and sits frozen on the floor with his hooves in front of his face to protect himself. As my eyes adjust, I realize that this mystery pony is not a 'he' at all. She's Princess Luna.

"Oh god, I'm so sorry Princess Luna," I apologize, cringing at my idiocy. I jump out of the bed to help her get up but she refuses my hoof extended out in help.

"It is fine Lee-um," she huffs, getting up by herself. "Thoust prank hath only startled us."

I'm really trying to hide it but she catches my growing smirk and her face flushes angrily.

"Are you- thou mocking us?" she growls.

"No not at all!" I shake my head furiously but I can't seem to erase my smile. "It's just.. your scream was really cute."

"Cute?" Luna looks like she can't even comprehend the word.

"Yes, you sounded kind of like a mouse," I grin.

"Thou comparest us to a rodent?" Luna says, not looking very amused.

Shit.

"It is but a mere joust," Luna smiles.

"You mean a joke?" I ask.

"Ah yes, that is the word I was searching for."

We smile for a few seconds before I finally manage to get a hold of myself as I remember what I realize what I need to do. I take a few breathes to steel my courage and stomp out the growing doubts in my gut.

"I'm sorry Princess Luna," I bow my head in regret.

"Your prank warrants no need of such apology," Luna says sounding flustered.

"No though I am sorry for that too but this apology is for letting you hold onto my memories," I explain, all previous good humor draining away. "I was being a stupid coward again and I didn't think about how they may have effected you. I'm really grateful that you wanted to help but this is something that I have to handle on my own."

Princess Luna stares at me and I can't tell what is on her mind at all. Finally, she speaks.

"I will return your memories of your first weeks of Equestria," she says slowly.

"Great! Thank y-"

"But that is all that I shall give back," Luna finishes.

"W-what?" My eyes squint in confusion. "Why?"

Luna won't meet my eyes.

"It is for the best," she says quietly. Before I can reply, she closes the distance between us and touches her horn to mine. It feels like a dozen KO punches slamming into my gut as all these images and sounds and smells and feelings are crammed into my head. For a few moments, I just lie on the cold marble floor panting, but unable to catch my breath no matter how much air I sucked out of the room. My mind is swarming with unorganized memories from the story Tick Tock shared with me of my origins to the mission he gave me that night where Celestia's study was planted with bombs that nearly killed me. Piece by piece, I gain my composure as I sort out my thoughts.

"Memory transfers are always the most curious things," Luna says sadly. "Though I remembered everything perfectly before, as soon as I gave you those memories, they disappeared from my own mind as well."

I can't speak yet so I just nod to let her know that I heard her.

I don't know how much time has past but Luna keeps waiting patiently for me to recover.

"...wow," I whisper when I finally manage to speak. Before Tick Tock was a name. Now he's an actual pony that I knew. The sting of his betrayal feels as fresh as if it happened yesterday. My original goals return with my memories and though my mind is swirling around chaotically, I regain my resolution to meet Tick Tock again.

"Thank you," I say tiredly. Not only for returning these memories but for keeping them safe for these few days. I don't know how I was handling them before but I feel like it was definitely not as well as I am right now. At this moment, I feel... incredible. She took a burden from me and gave back strength.

But it still only a piece of what I had lost. Why won't Luna give the rest, the piece with Jason, back?

Right before I'm about to ask, Luna answers my question.

"You're not yet ready," she reasons, but it really just sounds like an excuse to me. "When I deem that you are prepared, I will return the rest of your memories."

I'm about to argue but her eyes beg me to drop the issue.

"When will I be ready?" I ask instead.

"The harder you work in your studies, the faster the time will come."

I can't help but feel as if I'm being led on here but there isn't much else I can do. Throwing a tantrum won't help anyone and I'm already in a great debt to Luna already that I'll never be able to repay even if I spend my entire life dedicated to her every need.

It looked like the only option was to work for it. The only fear I had was I would slowly lose the resolution I made to take back the memories from Luna the more time it took. Even now, the fear of the past has a vicegrip on my lungs and I just want everything to disappear.

Then the most stupid and blatant realization hits me. Luna has my memories. Luna has my memories so in a way, doesn't she know me even better than myself? And she accepted me?

"...alright. When can we start?" I ask, unable to absorb my own thoughts.

Luna smiles in relief and she clears her throat.

"There is still some time before the night begins. We have prepared a more permanent place of dwelling thou," Luna announces.

"Er, I've always been meaning to ask but why do you talk like that?" I ask.

"Talk like what?"

"Well, like referring to yourself plurally and using 'thou's and stuff. You kind of switch from modern day speech to olden day speech at the oddest of times and it's a little confusing."

"Oh... do you not like it?" She looks a little sad and I regret even bringing the topic up.

"No, not at all," I assure her. "It's a refreshing style of speech. Old is the new new as they say!" Holy crap what bullshit am I spraying right now?

"Really?" Luna's eyes sparkle. "Then we must speaketh like this more often!"

I face hoof but she doesn't notice in her excitement.

I really don't have much to bring, just that first bag of stuff I brought from Tick Tock's place and Jason the fire salamander who had mysteriously disappeared and reappeared under the bed. And of course, Twilight's book of Equestrian legends. I gaze upon it sadly but now's not the time to be lamenting so I put it in my bag and say goodbye to the room that has so graciously housed me for the past few days.

As Luna leads me to some higher levels of the castle, my mind pushes forward a memory.

"We first met in a dream," I reminisce.

"Yes..." Luna smiles, her eyes looking back into past. "I had not recognized you afterwards for your form was quite different in your dream. Who were you?"

"I don't know," I sigh. "I think I was just affected by that story Tick Tock had told me. But you know all this already right?"

"No," Luna shakes her head. "As I mentioned before, your memories have been completely extracted from my mind. I do not even have memories of your memories, just blanks."

"Oh.." Somehow, that sounded really sad. It's like getting a toy, losing it, then forgetting it ever existed.

"That's why I would like it very much if you were to... share with me your experiences. Properly this time," Luna asks. I don't see her expression because she is walking ahead of me to lead the way. I want to share with her, I really do but something catches me and makes me hesitate.

Why am I stopping? This is all information that she had already known and she isn't treating me any different now that she lost it.

"Sure," I finally respond after too long of a silent pause.

"Thank you," Luna smiled. "Oh, we're already in your new room. Thou may settle in a bit first before thou tellest us more about thouself."

I nod and we enter the room and I get a mini heart attack from the shock.

It's a grand room, much larger than the guest room I had been staying in. A huge canopy bed of royal blue and white sits to far left corner of the room. To the right, a grand desk with two fat bookshelves on either side, overflowing with hardcover books. Directly across from the door was another set of towering windows that opened to another balcony. The craziest thing about this room though is the mural of the night sky that covered the walls of the entire room. It was not just a typical dark blue sky with little lights that are stars and a moon somewhere... no it was alive. I could feel stars shifting, sparkling, thin lines connecting the constellations, shooting stars occasionally streaking across the sky and the moon circling around this room, slowly and steadily in this endless night. It was breathtaking and beautiful and I hated it.

"I don't deserve this," I whisper, horrified.

Luna's expectant expression drops to surprise then to anxiety.

"You don't like it?"

"No, it's the most amazing room I've ever seen... but I don't deserve this," I repeat, shaking my head. What I deserve is the guest room I was staying in, maybe shrunk down a bit without the wardrobe and balcony. The marble floor should be removed and the desk a big chunk of wood and the bed turned into a sofa. That's the room I am worthy for. Not THIS. This room was meant for freaking loyalty.

"I wanted only the best for my student," Luna explains, her expression hurt. Oh dammit I did it again. I suppress my feelings of guilt and force a big smile on my face.

"It's wonderful Princess Luna," I say, my face hurting from exerting my smile muscles too much. "I'll do my best to live up to this room."

Luna relaxes and nods.

"We did the walls ourself," she says.

"Really? Holy shoot that's amazing," I look around trying to take in what kind of spells would even be used in this. Luna dark cheeks redden.

"It's about time for me to raise the moon. As my student would you like to watch me?"

"Definitely," I answered, very curious to see the whole process. I drop my bag onto the bed but Jason stays on my head. Together, we follow Luna as she leaves opens the windows to the balcony and step outside.

"We're actually right next to my own room," she explains, pointing to another balcony to our left. "If you ever need me, just come and find me in my room."

"Okay," I say distractedly. If I'm living right next to Luna then is it possible that Princess Celestia also... I lean out over the balcony and see a slightly larger tower further left beyond Luna's room. On that balcony, I see Princess Celestia lowering the final centimeters of the sun under. Her figure is small due to the distance but I see the deep concentration on her face as her horn glows with intense power. I am awed. When Princess Celestia finished her job, she opened her eyes. My eyes met with hers and there was an awkward pause of surprise before she glares at me and turns around to return to her room.

I sigh and turn back to Luna who has now closed her eyes for concentration. It's dark now without the sun but I can still see her face as her horn is glowing with magic. I feel the hum of it surrounding me, and entering my bones. I tear my eyes from Luna's figure to see a small pure glow of light slowly rising from the opposite side where the sun fell. It is the beacon in the darkness and when it about half of it is above the Canterlot skyline, Luna halts her magic.

"It doesn't look like it's traveling very fast," she explains, "but that's only because we stand at a great distance from it. I only have to use my magic to move it at the beginning and middle of the night and momentum does the rest."

"That's... I don't even think I have a word for that," I gawk. Luna proudly smiles and clears her throat.

"Now, your assignment for tonight is to read the 'Magical Theory Volume 1', 'Longcaster's Guide to Dream Interpretation' and summarize what you learned from each book. These books can be found on your shelves in your room."

I nod, trying not to look overwhelmed by the homework load.

"Oh and before I go, I would like to see your magic," Luna says. "I want to see how bad you could possibly be."

"Pretty bad," I say under my breath so she doesn't hear me. We go back into my room and I dig in the desk drawers for a quill. I find a whole bundle of them and after taking a deep breath and begging the god of magic to not make myself like a fool in front of Princess Luna, I close my eyes and point my horn at a quill, trying to remember the basics and feel my hornstrings pull like how I felt it in my dream when I created the moon. I feel the faintest of pulls in my horn and when I open my eyes, the quill is hovering in an aura of uneven royal blue... and as unsteady as it may look, it's not falling!

I shout and pump my hooves in joy, causing myself to lose concentration and thus the quill falls.

"...not bad," Luna comments. "It's a start at least."

I can tell she's trying to not hurt my feelings but that effort alone hurts.

"You can tell it to me straight," I say, disheartened. "I know I have no talent for magic."

Luna places her hoof on my shoulder and shakes her head.

"The worse you are at something, the more you can improve. When you try this spell or any, loosen up your shoulders; you're too tense. Also, focus only on the object. I can tell you are getting distracted by your surrounding but you must force yourself to see only the quill and nothing but the quill."

Finally, advice. There are things you can never learn from a book. Maybe there's hope for me after all.

"When you reach higher stages of your learning in magic, I will eventually ask you to accompany me into other dreams," Luna smiles. My heart flutters in excitement and I nod furiously.

"I must go now, work hard Lee-um!"

She jumps off the balcony and I start to realize that all these balconies must just be a landing and launch pads for these unicorn sisters.

I return to my room and search for the books on the shelves. They are pretty easy to find as the books are organized in alphabetical order by author. While I'm at it, I figure I should put Twilight's book up on a shelf as well rather than letting it sit in that musty old bag for a second later. Something feels off when I take it out though, like a nagging memory is just waiting to be noticed. I open the front cover of the book and silently cry out when I see and remember the first story of this book. A legend of Equestria: the two unicorn brothers of fire and ice who fought with each other to the death. A story ominously similar to the one Tick Tock told me and for millionth time, I don't know what to think.

Tick Tock's POV

Tired. Oh so tired. But it shall be over soon.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Time is running out.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I watch the red LED screen count down.

In my right hoof I hold a precious photo that serves as the reminder of what I am fighting for. A picture of me and a young foal, nearly a stallion. His coat is a bright red and his mane the color of scorching flames. I stroke the photo as tears fall from my old decrepit eyes.

It will be over soon.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Soon.

**Author's Note: Apologies that this chapter wasn't very action packed but there needed to be a cool down period after all the drama. Anyways, this story is taking a life on it's own and it's really fun to see my ideas start to come into shape. Bear with me if there are some grammatical and minor spelling mistakes. I read it over rather quickly since I wanted to post this before I went to sleep. **


	12. Chapter 12 Equestrian Life

"Hey Lium!" a voice shouts out behind me causing me to turn around and see who called. A light coated guardspony pegasus whose name escapes me trots up to my left and flashes a smile.

"Some of the other guys and I are going out in a bit for some cupcakes at Sunshine cafe; wanna join us?"

I freeze. They're going out for cupcakes? Cupcakes? That's what the guardsponies do in their free time here in Canterlot? I force myself not to laugh and keep a straight face.

"No that's alright," I decline with a sheepish smile. "Princess Luna has me swamped with homework right now so I can't."

"Oh, that's too bad. Maybe next time then?"

"Yeah, for sure," I nod. He leaves and I sigh when he's out of hearing distance. That was the fifth time I have been invited out with the other ponies and it didn't give me great thrill to decline them but I am actually really busy. And not with Princess Luna's homework like I had told that nameless pony.

I quickly resume my walk towards the castle library.

How long had it been since I began my new life as Luna's student? It felt really weird at first since now I had a totally different sleep schedule. I imagine it felt like how jet lag would feel. I didn't mind it too much though since I'm not really a social pony and neither are the night guards so it works out rather nicely. The only ponies that ask me out are the day guards like the pony from earlier who are changing shifts and want to do some 'night time partying'. I smirk, thinking of how their equivalence of 'night time partying' is hanging out at a cafe and eating cupcakes. Another benefit of being a night owl is that I don't have to worry about bumping into Celestia too often. The only times I've even seen her is when I stay up too late and I make sure that if I even catch a glimpse of her, I immediately head the other direction and hide in some obscure room. Call me a coward but she's freaking scary.

I was also totally lost in this huge castle for the first couple days. Though there are plenty of guards around, I refused to ask for any help so I ended up wasting a lot of time just wandering around and trying to figure out where I am. I guess as a result of that, I managed to memorize the layout of the castle in a relatively short amount of time so it worked out in the end but I'm pretty sure I heard some guards snickering at me when I passed them multiple times looking utterly confused.

I arrive at the thick wooden doors of the library and I push them open, smoothly and silently. The library is quiet and dark as it always is at night time. I'm quite grateful for that because I noticed I find it really hard to focus if I don't at least have a certain level of peace and quiet. I use an illumination spell to light up my horn and begin searching for the titles that Luna had assigned for me under the white glow of magic.

I quickly pick them out and place them out onto one of the tables using some levitation magic. Yes, it's true. I am now an adequate user of magic. I may be no Starswirl the Bearded but I can now perform the basics and I recently even started on some of the more intermediate spells. I'm barely adequate, mediocre, and certainly the last or second last pony that deserves to be Luna's student. Sometimes, when ponies don't realize that I'm there, they talk about how they can't understand why Princess Luna chose me when there are so many more talented ponies who would die for the chance to learn from her. Ponies with cutie marks.

Sigh, nothing has yet called out to me as a special skill. I can't even think about anything I was particularly good at when I was a human. I honestly gave up. If I have no talent in anything, so be it. Screw anyone who looks down on me because of it.

They also often compare me to Twilight Sparkle, the magical prodigy with talent that only appears once in century.

The name stings me to be honest. At first, all I felt was the hurt and sadness. She never wrote to me either and thus I never gathered the courage to write to her.

I often look at the book she had given me as a 'sign of friendship' and laugh at my foolishness. Part of me wants to chuck it out of the window and another part wants to keep forever regardless of what she thinks of me now. I sigh as I open the first book on the list. Tonight's assignment is to read these three books and write up their summaries and then practice and hopefully master colour changing magic. The work load slowly increases but I always manage to finish somehow with time to spare. That free time I use to conduct my research. Knowledge is the best sword to slaughter ignorance I am determined to gain as many weapons as I can so that I am never taken advantage of again for my cluelessness.

I still burn in anger every time I think about it. Tick Tock's fake history that he had created for me hadn't even come from his own imagination. No, it was a tale that every little colt and filly knew here in Equestria. A little bed time story told to them by their parents to teach them to get along with their siblings. It is true that Tick Tock's version had a few key differences but essentially, both stories had two brothers fighting each other over a mare and both ended up with a less than happy ending. I looked up all the versions of the story I could, determined to find a copy that included the colts that were born to each brother but it was to no avail.

I'm still on the search but my focus has now turned to searching up time magic and history of the study of time. There is no mention of any 'Time Wardens' anywhere in the books I've been reading but according to Luna, they did at one point exist. The last true time warden's name was Time Twister and he had actually passed his duties onto the alicorn sisters a thousand years ago. Then I asked how old Luna was and she told me it was rude to ask a mare how old she is. But yeah, Time Twister is dead and has been dead for a thousand years apparently. I also asked Luna if she ever heard of a 12'o'clock and she shook her head. More uncovered lies from Tick Tock; there's a big surprise.

I finish the first book and sit in my mode of thought as I look over the key points I have written down from each chapter. I feel distracted tonight and that's no good. I have a lot of work to do so I slap my cheeks and stretch out my legs. My resolution to get stronger physically has failed and made way for the heavy duty studying. I still occasionally go for night runs which are awesomely refreshing but not as often as I should or would like. Lately though, I just feel really messed up... and maybe a little down.

_"Do you know what I do when I'm feeling down?"_

_"..." _

_"I study."_

I punch myself.

"Get over her Lium, you only knew her for a few days. Focus man focus," I lecture myself and then get started on writing up that summary when I hear hoofsteps coming up behind.

"Hello Lee-um, we've cometh to seest thou," Luna greets me.

"Good night Princess Luna," I reply. It took a while to get accustomed to utilizing what I previously used as bedtime farewell as a greeting now but as with all the new changes, I learned to go with the flow.

"It is a wonderful night tonight," Luna nods. "That's why tonight, we wisheth to taketh thou out of this dusty library so that we can enjoy some fresh air."

"Oh, thank you for the offer but I'm kind of behind already on my work as it is and-"

"We will not taketh no for an answer tonight Lium," Luna rejects my rejection and hits me with some magic. "Temporary, wingless flight," she explains and before I know it, I'm flying out the window at incredible speeds until Luna hits me again with another spell and I slow down.

"Sorry," she calls out from behind me. "Too strong."

I'm feeling a little nauseous but it's nothing compared to the feeling of flight. I had always wondered whenever I saw a pegasus what the power of flight must feel like and now that I'm experiencing it, I don't know if I can ever go back. My phobia of heights isn't even kicking in and I shake my head in disbelief at this magic.

It's freedom unrestricted, untamed, and unleashed. I am part of the air I am riding upon with the countless stars watching over me and the terrain nested below, I glide across the skies. It's like I have invisible wings on my back that guide me across these dark skies.

"This is awesome!" I shout to Luna flying right beside me.

"You can find it in your advanced spells book under the transportation section," she shouts back. Well figures. Looks like it will be a while till I master this spell.

"Follow me," Luna picks up the speed and pulls ahead of me. We quickly leave behind the mountain that Canterlot is built into and continue off into the darkness. We fly for quite a length of time, I'd guess a few hours. Occasionally, Luna points out a new constellation she hasn't told me about before or an owl appears and flies beside us before swooping down to find some prey. It's obvious we have a destination but I don't feel like asking Luna where we are going. She's the only pony I trust in this huge land of Equestria and it's fine to leave these kind of things a surprise.

The looming, bulking shapes of the mountains draw closer and closer and Luna shifts upward so fly higher and higher.

Lightly, my hooves touch down on fresh powdered snow on a mountain peak and I feel the spell break off my body. One time use. Hm.

It's been a long time since I've seen snow. I use my hoof to dig into it, to feel the grainy chill and melting upon contact with my body heat. I feel Luna's eyes watch me with melancholy and I finally ask,

"Why did you bring me here?"

"I felt that a change of pace was necessary," Luna replies. "I worry about you Lee-um."

"What?" My heart drops."But I complete all my homework. I know mastering spells takes a little longer for me than they should but I still get them down in the end."

"No, you work hard and there is nothing wrong with your performance Lee-um," Luna sighs. "But I think you work too hard. You're drowning yourself in it."

"..."

"I give you homework I mean to last the week and you finish it in one night and ask for more the next. I see you closing yourself off from the world into the library reading books about time magic and the stories that Tick Tock had told you of your heritage and it hurts to see you so alone."

And it hurts me to see how much Luna cares.

"But, I'm not alone," I reject. "I have you and Jason."

"I want to see you making some other friends Lee-um," Luna insists.

"I don't need friends Princess Luna," I argue. An image flashes of Twilight Sparkle and I cringe. Friendship means nothing here. It's taken as quickly as it is taken and I don't need it.

"There is more to life than studying. I want you to see what this world has to offer and I never wanted my night to rob you of any opportunities."

"Your night is amazing princess. I'd choose the night over the day a million times if that'd show how awesome it is," I say but my words don't seem to lift her spirits up like they usually do.

"All the biggest events take place during the day. The one event that happens during the night is Nightmare Night. Even the great dragon migration only occurs during the day and as a result, you missed it last week."

I nudge some snow around, trying to find the words that would assure her that I'm fine. An idea pops into my mind.

"Princess Luna," I get her attention. "Watch this."

I take a deep breath and concentrate on the snow. Slowly and naturally, it turns to a shade of red, then blue and the finally green. I breathe in relief that I did the spell so well considering I didn't practice at all. Then I lift the snow into the air with a levitation spell and clump it into a snowball.

"Princess Luna! I challenge you to a snowball fight!"

I swing the ball of green snow right into her face and she kicks back spluttering.

"What was that for?" She says angrily, wiping the snow from her muzzle.

"It's a snowball fight," I explain, wondering if this was such a good idea after all. "You make balls of snow and throw em at each other." I roll up another ball of snow with my magic to demonstrate.

"Hm. I have never participated in a 'snow ball' fight before but it sounds far too barbaric-ah!"

I hit her with another one and but this time I threw it too high and it only grazed her horn.

"Shoot!" I jump behind a large drift of snow as an onslaught of sloppily made snowballs come after me.

"You have to pack together more tightly," I shout, watching the snowballs fall apart before they even hit the wall of snow I'm hiding behind.

"Come out and face us like a stallion!" Luna shouts after me, chuckling in delight. "This is more fun than I imagined!"

I'm happy that her mood improved. To keep it going, I peek out and throw a well aimed snowball that hits her right between the eyes.

She cries out in surprise and I laugh.

"Why you-"

Something cold hits me from behind and I gasp from the sudden chill. I turn around and gulp.

"Oh shi-"

Countless snowballs had snuck behind me and now I am under the complete mercy of Luna as she unleashes the full might of her alicorn fury on me. When the barrage finally stops, I can't even move cause I'm now neck down incased under a heavy pile of snow.

Luna steps onto the drift and looks down on me, holding a snicker down with her hoof to her mouth.

I magic a chunk of snow out of the drift, causing Luna to tumble down. She lands eye to eye to me, a thin layer of powder just covering her face. Slowly, I levitate a small chunk of snow onto her muzzle and let it balance there.

She smiles, causing it to fall down and we snigger and laugh together. I break free from my soft prison and brush off the snow in my mane and coat.

"There was a point to that you know," I say.

"Other than the fun?" She asks, her eyes lighter than before the battle.

"I wanted to show you how much I improved," I explain, picking up some snow. "I would have never become this adept at magic without your guidance and the way you describe me, it's like I'm the saddest stallion in the world but I'm not unhappy you know. I'm learning so many interesting things about this world. It's a real privilege to be your student and I don't feel like I'm missing out. In fact, I feel like it's the regular ponies of Ponyville who missing out on this awesomeness."

I point out to the wonderful view of the night. I can see the dark outline of Canterlot sticking out of the side of the mountain and bright night sky behind it, littered and bursting with stars. The moon, humble and beautiful shines over our heads and makes the snow seem to just glow and sparkle with magic.

"Thank you," Luna whispers.

I grin.

"But I still wish for you to see more of Canterlot."

Dang it.

"There is a desert competition being held this morning. Would you accompany me for the event?" Luna asks.

Honestly, I'm not too fond of sweets but I really can't refuse Luna.

"Alright," I reply, a little glumly. "I would be honoured to escort the princess."

"Unfortunately, I will not be attending the competition as a princess," Luna says sadly. "The citizens of Canterlot have yet to... become accustomed to my presence. Thus, I shall go in disguise!"

I totally want to see that. We leave with another round of the temporary wingless flight spell and on the way back, I have to ask why she chose to bring me to the mountains.

"Perhaps I just wished to play in the snow with you," she says enigmatically but I really don't feel like that was the reason at all.

When we return to the balcony outside my room, Luna leaves me to finish my work. It looks like I can finish all the work if I kick it to overdrive though Luna was dropping some heavy hints that I didn't have to finish all this tonight. I can't stop though, studying keeps me busy and makes me feel like I'm improving myself, becoming a better me. I feel like Princess Celestia will never accept me unless I can stand on my hooves without depending so heavily upon Luna and that will never happen until I can get my act together and become strong enough to take back the burdens that I left Luna with.

The sky is lighter when I finish off my last report and start practicing changing my bed sheets to various colours before leaving it at a dark green that matches well with the night sky that is my wallpaper. I hear the door open and assume Princess Luna came to pick me up. I'm focussing on changing the colour of my black ink into red, so I welcome her in without looking at the door.

"Give me a second princess," I say. "Just one more second and I'll get this..."

I feel a bead of sweat trail down the side of my forehead as my horn glows with magic. I honestly feel like I'm on the top of my game today for some reason and it's barely even a second before the unmistakeable bright hues of red emerge from the black ink and I cry out in a victorious roar.

"Yes!" And when I turn around my face pales and I forget to breathe.

"You can have all the seconds you want," Tick Tock says, his deep voice warm and welcoming as if we are the best of friends and he didn't leave me for dead at all. I drop the ink and red splatters all over me like blood.

**Author's Note: Sorry, I've been posting rather regularly for a few days now making sure to post a chapter right before I go to sleep but yesterday, I fell asleep in the middle of writing. Sorry about that, I will try to keep up the chapter a day thing for as long as I can but as August draws to a close, so does my free time.**

**Emilyskam: haha here you go, hope it pleases you**

**Xorobukkit: thanks, it's good to know that my imitation of Luna's ancient speech doesn't sound too bad :D**


	13. Chapter 13 Truth?

**Author's Note: If any of you noticed I took Flash off the pairings it's cuz I felt guilty that it's been so many chapters in without a sign or hair of him to be seen. I'll add him back to the pairing once he appears. **

"What are you doing here?" I angrily whisper.

Tick Tock steps in and closes the door behind him, wearing an easy smile all the while. He looks a few years older since I last saw him. There is more white than grey in his mane and he is wearing a bulky ugly jacket that doesn't suit him at all. Well defined lines of age run all along his face and legs but I recognize him. I feel like can recognize Tick Tock in any form, and any age.

I had a million questions for him, all listed in my head but seeing him face to face like this just spontaneously combusted that list in my mind. I always thought to find him, I'd have to go search for him. Never had I dreamed to find him here, in my room of all places to seek me out himself.

"What are you doing here?" I ask again, louder, fiercer.

How the hell was this guy just standing there as if nothing was wrong and he didn't shove a pack of lies down my throat and left me to die here? Suddenly, I can't hold back my anger any more and I jump at him, pinning him to the wall with my hooves around his neck.

"Oops, you may want to be a little more gentle with me," he tsks and unbuttons his jacket. I fall back, aghast.

"You're insane," I gasp. He smiles sheepishly as if I just complimented his mane. Strapped tightly around his chest and stomach in a tangle of wires were five bombs, just like the one from that night I first came here to Canterlot.

"Yes, I am," he smiles sadly. "But there are things I can never give up on and being sane doesn't help me in my goals."

I shake my head in disbelief.

"Did you know?" Tick Tock says, suddenly changing the topic from his sanity. "That I'm a father?"

"Well I bet your son or daughter is just happy as can be to have such a great homicidal pony as a father," I say sarcastically.

Tick Tock laughs.

"No, he hated me," he says wistfully. "I never really gave him the attention he deserved. And bam!" He slams his hoof onto the wall behind him, hitting one of the drifting stars and causing such a large smacking sound that I flinch, hoping that would not trigger the freaking bombs on his body. "He's dead."

"And let me guess, he's behind everything you're doing right now," I predict.

"Yes, I suppose he is," Tick Tock nods. "You know, you remind me so much of my son."

"Oh was he as gullible as me?" I ask, rolling my eyes.

"No, no nothing of the sort," Tick Tock shakes his head. "Quite the contrary actually. He refused to believe anything I told him you see."

"Well good to know he knew you so well," I reply coldly. Tick Tock's face looks like he was shot and I would almost feel sorry for him but I don't.

"Cut the chatter and tell me why you are here Tick Tock," I say.

"I need your help," Tick Tock replies straight to point.

I laugh. Hard. Tick Tock patiently waits for me to catch my breathe.

"You... you really are insane," I cough out in between laughter. I wipe a tear from my eye as I calm down. "I'm the last person who would help you especially after you almost killed me with those bombs! What the hell was that stupid necklace about? Why did you want me dead?"

"I never wanted you dead foolish boy," Tick Tock sighs, his patience finally seeming to run out. "Don't you think that Princess Luna appeared to rescue you at too convenient of a time? Who do you think told her that there was a unicorn about to die inside the archives from explosives?"

I'm speechless. No... no it just can't be..

"Yes, it was me," Tick Tock smiles.

"But, but why didn't you just give me a proper homeward bound necklace?" I splutter. "Why go through all the trouble unless..."

Oh shit.

Tick Tock's smile widens.

"That's right. Perhaps you aren't so foolish after all."

"It was so Luna thought that I was betrayed.. She took me in out of pity and now I'm here in a position inside the castle where I can help you..."

"Yes!" Tick Tock claps his hooves together. "Though it was never in my wildest dreams that she would have taken you in as her student."

"You miscalculated one thing in your genius plan Tick Tock," I spit angrily. "I hate your guts regardless and I'd rather die than help you."

"Want to put those words to the test?" Tick Tock pulls out a vial from his coat pocket. A dull purple liquid sloshes around the tiny vial as he shakes it around before my eyes. Before I can ask what it is, he answers.

"This is the antidote," he says.

"To what?" My throat is dry.

"I wonder if you recall the solution I made you drink after your first dream here in Equestria?" Tick Tock ponders.

My heart skips a beat. My mouth recalls a foul chemical tasting mixture.

"My own special brew," Tick Tock explains. "It doesn't stop dreams really. It was easy to stop your dreams with a simple dream catcher. There were two functions of the potion. The first one was that it let me link to your senses so I could see and hear anything you heard at anytime. The second purpose is that it is a slow acting poison. It initially causes mental instability but its real effects should be appearing any day now."

"And... what are those effects?" I gulp, my breathing getting ragged.

"Depression," Tick Tock continues. "Disorientation, vomiting, fatigue, loss of vision and eventual death. I'd predict your end to be in a few weeks if you don't take this antidote. He shakes it and I make a desperate lunge for it but he pulls it back and places it back into his coat.

"You can get this when you finish the job," Tick Tock says. He pulls out a folded piece of paper and places it onto my desk.

"That's a map of the castle catacombs, took a ridiculous amount of time to track this baby down and take it but I did. Anyways, I marked where in the catacombs the object I need is. Celestia hid it down there centuries ago and I suspect she has long forgotten about it but that will just make it easier for you."

I can't answer.

"Oh don't look like that," Tick Tock frowns. "I will definitely give you the antidote if you do this small task for me. I'll give you until you die which is a few weeks. I'd get this done as soon as possible if I were you, just to be on the safe side."

His business is done so he turns to leave out via balcony but before he opens the windows, I shout out to stop him.

"Why?" I have to know. "Why me? Did you just bring a random human here as your puppet to make him f-king dance for you!?"

"Everything I told you wasn't a complete lie," Tick Tock says quietly. "You really belong to this world. If you ever have the time, try your hoof at ice magic and see."

Then he throws open the windows and steps onto the balcony and disappears in a small flash of teleportation magic light.

I collapse onto the floor feeling like all I knew is falling apart again. Everything.. everything I did was all just part of Tick Tock's plan. I look at my hooves unable to believe it that I have poison running through my veins, slowly killing me. And everything I see, Tick Tock sees.

I feel sick and I can't tell if it's because I'm dying or if it's from Tick Tock's web of lies and manipulation. I sit dazed for a while.

"Are you ready to depart Lee-um?" Princess Luna's voice reaches my ears as she lands down onto the balcony. I half return back to reality.

"I have a question," I state, my voice flat. "That night you saved me from the explosions... how did you know that I was in trouble?"

"...a strangely timed question," Luna raises a brow.

"Please just answer me Princess."

"A young colt ran up to me," she says. "I never seen him before but he told me that a young stallion was about to die in the archives from the explosions."

"What did he look like?"

"If I remember correctly he had very clean white coat with his mane contrasted black. And he was about this tall," she demonstrates his estimated height with her hoof.

"Thank you Princess Luna," I say, smiling the crappiest feeling smile in the world.

"Why are you asking this all of a sudden?" Luna asks, confused.

"Just wanted to know," I answer, still smiling but wanting to cry. Everything is just part of Tick Tock's plan isn't it? The first time I saw him was a young colt. Was that so I could recognize Luna's description of him at this very moment? Shit, I don't even know what I want to do anymore.


	14. Chapter 14 Celestia and Sweets

**Author's Note: Man, so I spent a good amount of time today drawing and cutting out the main characters of this story from my story. Initially, I just wanted to practice drawing ponies since my first attempts of drawing Twilight were grotesque and were not fit to exist in this world but before I knew it, I started drawing with the intention of using them as the cover image of this story. **

**Unfortunately, the image was too big and only a portion of it was used. If you want the full pic, just pm me and we can figure a way for me to send it to you. It's no masterpiece since I just drew and cut out the pictures then put them on a white background but meh. Sorry for the long author's note, hope you enjoy the story. **

Third Person perspective following the Mane Six

"Think we'll see that Lium character at the desert competition?" Rainbow Dash comments as they pull up at the station. "I really want to see what the one pony of all of Equestria that Princess Celestia hates is like."

"Ooh, ooh, we should go visit him at the castle if he isn't at the competition to give him a piece of this masterpiece!" Pinkie licks her lips as she stares at the mouth watering result of combining the three contestants' creations from Ponyville.

Guilt arises in Twilight's expression at the mention of Lium's name. Applejack notices and places a hoof on her back.

"You ain't still being all depressed about him are you sugar cube?" Applejack asks, concern written on her face for her friend. "If Princess Celestia told you to stay away from him then that most definitely means he's no good to get involved with."

"I guess so," Twilight says quietly. "But I told him we were friends... is it right to just end a friendship like that?"

"I don't know," Applejack admits.

"I just feel so guilty," Twilight sighs. "I think I have to talk with Princess Celestia one more time to see why she dislikes him so much."

"We'll be right right behind you," Rainbow Dash puffs her chest and all her friends nod. Twilight smiles gratefully at them and together, they helps carry the cake, mousse, donut combination off the train and wheel it away carefully to the site of the competition.

Lium's POV

Ever since Tick Tock told me about the truth of the concoction he made me drink when I first got here, I've been feeling sick as heck. I think I'm just overthinking it since it's supposed to be a slow acting poison and I didn't feel any of the symptoms before but now...

I shake my head. I can't let Tick Tock screw around with me any more than this. I close my eyes and take deep breathes. He's lying. He's a lier so I can't let myself get suckered into all of his deceit again.

"Are you okay?" Luna asks. I open my eyes and just the sight of her cheers me up. Her idea of a disguise is hilarious. Basically, she's wearing a one piece white sundress to hide her crescent cutie mark along with her wings. Of course there is an awkward bulge on her dress so she placed some sort of grey shawl over her back to cover it. On her nose lies a thick pair of sunglasses and she tied her flowing mane back into a pony tail that now hangs to the side of her neck and for extra measures, she replaced her crown with a sunhat. Maybe it's cause I know that she's trying so hard to look different but just looking at her makes me chuckle.

She sees me smirking at her and lowers her sunglasses down the ridge of her muzzle.

"Too much?" She asks insecurely.

"Nah, it looks fine," I assure her. She nods nervously and we continue our walk towards the competition. Maybe I should talk to her about Tick Tock coming to visit me.

But he could be peeking into our conversation right now.

But Luna might be able to help me find a cure if I am indeed poisoned.

But all I have to do is take an object from the catacombs. And I know very well that nopony cares about the catacombs since they only have one guard at the entrance at a time.

Then why does Tick Tock need me so much?

The sweet smell of baked goods drift to my nose and I know that we are near the site of the competition.

"Do you like sweets Princess Luna?" I ask, trying to get my focus back onto today's event.

"I'm fond of them, though not quite as much as my sister," Luna answers.

My blood freezes.

"Princess Celestia won't be attending the competition today... will she?" I ask, petrified at the very thought.

"Of course my sister will be attending," Luna says as if it was the most natural thing in the world. "She's an honorary judge after all."

I want to go home and my face must show it.

"I know you and my sister do not get along very well," Luna continues. "I had hoped that today we may use her good mood from the sweets she will sample in order to settle any differences you two may have," Luna explains.

"I think a big part of why she hates me so much is that I'm letting you carry my memories," I say. "If you just return-"

"No, it is much too early. You still have a long way to go in your studies Lee-um." She shoots me down, not even considering the idea. I expected as much.

"Then please don't make me meet her Princess Luna. I really think I'll just spoil her day and I don't want to do that."

Princess Luna makes a complicated face.

"...no. I want my student to be fully recognized by my sister and we shall make that happen today," Luna naturally slips into the royal 'we' as she sheds her disguise right as we enter the garden in which the contest is held. Silence falls like a blanket of snow. Ponies immediately turn their eyes to us and I'd expect that is because Luna's presence is one that demands to be felt in the most irresistible of ways. There is elegance in her steps and determined expression as she walks without any shackles of shame. I look around, proud to be accompanying this great mare when I almost stop in shock.

None of the ponies look happy to see her here, much less admiring her like I thought they would. Their heads are bowed, trembling and refusing to look her in the eye. I turn back to Luna but she does not falter and I realize that she has expected this. Anger flows through my veins like hot lava.

"What are you ponies doing? This is your princess, not some tyrant!" I shout, but none of the ponies raise their heads or even look at me. My words fall on deaf ears.

"It is alright Lee-um," Luna shakes her head sadly. "We have grown accustomed to this reception."

"That doesn't make it okay!" I shout, mostly directed to the ponies who refuse to even look at her now. For the first time, I see a glimpse of the world the Luna resides in and my chest hurts for her. "That doesn't make it okay..." I repeat, whispering. They don't even know her so why do they fear her so much?

Luna smiles and that surprises me.

"Thank you for caring," she says and she pulls me into an embrace.

I stiffen in surprise and she pulls away quickly without meeting my eyes. Clearing her throat, she searches around for her sister. Who is incredibly easy to spot in a crowd. Princess Celestia stands further into the garden where Luna's presence has yet to be noticed as they are all fawning over a gigantic desert creation which looks to be a gigantic cake of some sort. We walk towards her and I see a confrontation about to happen so I pull back Princess Luna and plead with her once more to just let me hide for the remaining time of this event. She stoutly refuses me and continues her march. I sigh and follow after her until I see Twilight Sparkle handing over a slice of cake to Princess Celestia with her magic.

Author's Note: Apologies for the short chapter.


	15. Chapter 15 Desperation

She notices me and ours eyes meet. I break eye contact before I can see her reacting expression. Seeing her reopens all the little wounds that I've been accumulating since she left Canterlot with a short and uncomfortable goodbye. I know I shouldn't resent her, Princess Celestia's word is law around here and if the Princess Celestia said anything agains't me then well, what can Twilight do? Defy her and continue to hang with me?

Of course not. She chose Princess Celestia over me and hey, who wouldn't?

I don't have the right to hate her for the decision.

But that doesn't stop me from hurting at the sight of her. My legs still take me towards her though, following behind closely behind Luna.

I stare at the ground unable to tell what kind of emotions are bubbling inside me at the moment.

Then the inevitable moment arrives and Princess Luna and I stand before Princess Celestia and her student Twilight Sparkle. Princess Celestia holds an untouched piece of cake before her, her expression tight and difficult to read.

I still refuse to look at Twilight.

"Lium!" I hear that familiar shriek of cheer and joy and Pinkie Pie screeches up before me, a cloud of dirt skidding behind her back hooves with a plate of cake on her head.

"Have some cake!" she says, pushing the slice towards me and I take it without thinking. "It's amazing."

"Pinkie Pie?" I ask a little dumbfounded.

"Well who else would it be, silly?" Pinkie exclaims and before I can answer, a colorful cast of ponies come up from behind her and I instinctively know that these are the friends from Ponyville that I heard so much about. Even Spike who waves at me with an awkward smile. Some of them aren't looking too friendly though, like the orange pony wearing a cowboy hat over her tied up blond mane. She looks at me suspiciously, like I'm going to whip out a weapon at any second.

"Hey guys! This is Lium," Pinkie announces and pushes me to towards them to introduce me. In a blaze of names and hoof shakes with all of them except the light beige pony hiding behind long pinks bangs who was trembling when I offered my hoof. She seemed pretty freaked to see me, which hurt, but I didn't push it.

"Oh dear, you simply must brush your mane more often," a pale mare with a carefully styled purple mane exclaims, pulling out a brush from her bag and roughly ran the brush through my hair. "You look like a mess!"

I push her away confused at why she should care until I recognize her to be Rarity, the "fashionista with a heart of gold."

"Thank you," I say politely. "But I'm fine with my mane like this. I have a thing where I don't bother it and it doesn't bother me."

Rarity looks like she wants to say more but she holds back.

"If you insist dear."

"Eh," the rainbow maned pony known as Rainbow Dash says coolly as she drifts around us. "He doesn't seem like such a big deal. I kind of expected him to be a lot bigger... meaner looking too."

Sorry to disappoint you, I think a little bitterly. Princess Luna approaches the group and all the ponies bow in respect and greet her. Rather than showing blatant fear though, they seem to regard her rather normally. Well, other than Fluttershy who shies away even further and hides behind the back of Rainbow Dash.

"We are pleased to see you all again," Princess Luna smiles with a hint of shyness.

"Yes, it been a while since Nightmare Night hasn't it?" Rarity reminisces. "I prepared a whole new dress for you in preparation to amend that last fiasco. Pink may not be your colour but I'm sure the white and turquoise dress I've prepared will suit you wonderfully!"

"Er," Luna looks uncomfortable. "We thankest you but-"

"Oh it was hardly any trouble at all; I shall send it right over as soon as I get back to Ponyville."

Luna nods awkwardly in thanks and I can't help but smile when I see the interaction. It was not often that I seen Princess Luna interact with anypony other than her sister and me. I never really paid attention before but it was a really refreshing seen to see, especially after the rudeness of the ponies that first greeted her to this event. Then Princess Celestia steps into the fray along with Twilight and the loose atmosphere evaporates and my smile goes along with it.

"Sister," Luna calls out. "I wish to discuss with you about the attitude you have been displaying towards our student, Lee-um. I demand that he be treated with the same level of respect as I treat your student, Twilight Sparkle."

"I am treating him with the amount of respect that he deserves," Princess Celestia replies coldly and I can hear a silent gasp flow throughout the crowd gathered to watch. I squirm around, uncomfortably at the hard gazes that surround me, judging me before they even know me.

My eyes meet Twilight's again and this time I just look at her sadly, realizing she was just like the the others in the crowd who pretended to know who I am based on the judgements of somepony else.

I can't let Luna fight my own battles for me.

"That's right," I blurt out. "I know I'm a coward. I know I have no skills or talents." I look at my empty flank angrily. "I know I'm the freaking lamest pony here in Canterlot and probably in all of Equestria too but you know what? I'm going to change and I'm going to make you recognize me as Princess Luna's student. And I'll be the best student any teacher has ever had." I look at Twilight, who looks back at me guiltily. "I'll be even better of a student than Twilight Sparkle." I add bitterly.

Her friends' faces twist in shock and Princess Celestia looks at me carefully, maybe seeing me in a new light. Then she smiles and I suddenly feel cold.

"Very well," she says. "Since you are so eager to prove yourself let us have a competition. In one month, there will be a magic duel between our students. If you win," she looks at me. "Then I will acknowledge your worth as Luna's student."

There is a 'but' coming, I can just sense it.

"But," she continues. I knew it! "If you lose, you will leave Equestria and never come back."

"A banishment for losing a duel? That is ridiculous sister!" Luna cries out, outraged.

Princess Celestia ignores her and continues looking at me. I know she is goading me, daring me to accept after I boasted that I would become a better pony than Twilight. I can't back down now, my pride won't let me.

"I accept."

"No!" Luna forces me to look at her but my expression stops her from saying anything more. I break free from her grip and gallop off, away from the mess I just made, away from the teacher I so desperately want to be worthy of and away from Twilight Sparkle, the confounded pony who keeps invading the darkest corners of my mind and leeches me of all strength.

I run, and run and run and run till my throat is raw and my lungs start weeping for oxygen. When I come to, I realize that I had reached beyond the main gate and exited Canterlot. I walk a bit further to very edge of the mountain side and I look down. My head spins at the great height and I back off. As I catch my breath, I realize what I've done and bury my head in my hooves.

"No no no no no..." I whisper to myself in horror. "Oh shit I am so screwed! What the hell was I thinking!?" I angrily kick at the grass unable to control myself. Somepony touches my shoulder and I whip around to see it is Twilight Sparkle.

"Huh, what are you doing here?" I ask, dumbfounded. I see her friends running or flying up behind her as well.

"We followed you," she explained, looking concerned. "It isn't too late, we can cancel the magic duel."

I nearly say yes on the spot, so grateful for a chance to correct my mistake but instead I just stare at Twilight.

"You don't think I can beat you?" I ask slowly.

"What? No! That's not what I think at all!" She says flustered.

"No that's totally what she thinks," Pinkie Pie pitches in helpfully and Twilight glares at her.

"Look Lium, anypony can see how unfair the terms are for this bet," Twilight continues. "I've been Princess Celestia's student for more than a decade but you only started last month! Not to mention you only really started learning magic when you first entered Equestria."

She makes sense but it still burns.

"I can't go back Twilight," I whisper angrily. "If I go back and cancel this duel I won't be able to look at any pony in the eye again."

"Magic duel honour states that I can't hold back against you," Twilight pleads. "I have nothing to lose if I fail but you can lose everything!"

"She's right," Rarity says, concerned. "This is madness!"

I look at the other ponies and they all look... like they care.

I'm touched but their kindness stings.

"Guess I'll just have to win then," I mutter. She's about to reply but I interrupt her. "And why do you care so much? One word from Celestia and bam, our friendship ended."

I almost regret what I said as soon as I said it because she looks so hurt but I can't stop. The words are just vomiting out of my mouth and I no longer have control.

"So why don't you just go back to Princess Celestia's side and leave me alone? I don't need any your crappy friendship!"

And that was the last straw. She turns around and gallops off but not before I heard a heart wrenching sob quickly covered up by her hoof.

"Wait, Twilight!" Her friends call and follow after her. All but one.

The orange pony wearing a cowboy hat, Applejack.

She isn't glaring at me for making her friend cry like I expected her to. Instead, she looks at me sadly, trying to understand my actions.

After some silence, she speaks.

"Y'know... Twilight ain't the kind of pony you think she is."

"..."

"She's been mighty depressed the past few weeks and I think it's because you. Don't go thinkin' she's the kind of pony who easily turns her back on any friends cause she ain't."

With that, she tilts her hat and trots off.

Once again, I find myself alone.

"Well," I say to myself, smirking. "Here we are again, Lium."

The sun shines cheerfully, ignoring this horrible mood around me and I stare over the edge of the cliff wishing I knew Luna's flight spell so I could soar, far away from here.

**Author's Note: So I referenced a removed part of the episode 'Lunar Eclipsed' where Twilight asked Rarity to dress Princess Luna up to look more 'princessy' and friendly. Rarity apparently went over board and ended up dressing Luna in a pink frilly dress. Just in case you guys didn't know and were confused about Rarity was talking about earlier in the chapter. **


	16. Chapter 16 Apologize

Celestia's POV

Luna moves to chase after the young agitated unicorn but I firmly place my hoof on her shoulder to stop her.

She turns to face me and her expression hurts me for it filled with hate, not unlike that fateful night a thousand years ago when she transformed into Nightmare Moon.

Her expression then softens from hate to confusion as she asks me, "Why?"

She knows the answer and yet she still asks. Though I had long convinced myself that separating her and that student of hers would be for her benefit, the pain I see that I have caused makes me hesitate. However I harden my heart once more and speak.

"It is for the best," I say. Luna tries to argue however I stop her with my hoof. "Listen to me Luna. You only bring yourself suffering by clinging to him. The world he comes from and ours should never have mixed. You must give back his memories and let him go."

"Where would he even go? The lands outside Equestria are dangerous and wild... he wouldn't last a day out there! You are sending him to his execution!"

"It is for the best," I repeat. Luna looks shocked and honestly, I am surprised at myself for saying that as well.

"Who are you?" she asks horrified. "The sister that I know and love would never have said such words.."

"Luna... please understand when I say that I don't want to lose you again," I step towards her but she backs away. One step, then two, before she turns and unfolds her wings. She flies away and I am left alone with a piece of cake and an aching heart. I look around and see that my own student and her friends have left as well.

Lium's POV

I don't go back and instead spend the day on the edge of the cliff. I doze in and out of consciousness as I ponder the effects of the poison I supposedly drank. I think one of them was mental instability wasn't it? Ha that makes sense. I must've been crazy to accept Princess Celestia's bet. I was even crazier to reject Twilight's attempt to help and ended up making her cry. I can still hear her muffled sob and oh god it hurts.

If Tick Tock wasn't lying and he really did poison me... maybe I can just die on this cliff. A voice inside me fights though. Why should I be subjected to such hate from Celestia? What did I ever do to her? All I've been doing since I became Luna's student was work to change myself but all my efforts did nothing to change Princess Celestia's views of me. But that didn't happen. If anything, it seems that she hates me even more now.

Why?

What more do I need to do gain some recognition around here?

_Win._

I stand up, shaking the grogginess from my mind. I have a month, I have to study as much magic as I can in the meanwhile and if I can win against Twilight... Hope blossoms and I gallop off back into Canterlot and to the castle.

I barely nod at the guards as run through the halls and bust into the library and grab all the magic books I can find. They float behind me as I dash to my room and lock the door. I'm only able to do lower intermediate spells right now but if I double, no triple my effort, surely I can improve and put Twilight Sparkle up for a good run for her money. I place the stack of books next to my desk and pull off the first book which contains an explanation of magic duel systems.

The rules of a magic duel are simple enough. Two ponies face off under the watch of a minimum of 7 witnesses. Judges are optional. Once the duel starts, the first pony to cast the spell is called the initiator. The other pony must counter all the spells that the initiator performs until the second pony can cast a spell before the initiator which moves the initiator title to him or her. And the then the process continues till the non-initiator cannot counter the initiator's spell. No dangerous spells that threaten life may be used. Any items in the background is fair game to use but if you want to use a member of the audience, you must have their permission.

I drop the book to my left after I wrapped my mind around the rules and lifted the third volume of beginner spells in order to warm up my horn. I take a deep breath and begin. I start losing my heart and optimism about two hours in as I am brought back to earth by my blatant lack of talent. In fact, my skills somehow managed to even degenerate. I spent the last fifteen minutes trying perform the color changing spell but to no avail.

I suck. Finally, I snap and throw the book at the wall. The corner bounces off the wall with a dull thud and hits the ground. Immediately I regret my loss of temper and check the wall to see if I damaged it. There is a large dent in the night sky that Luna personally created for me and I groan.

"No, god dammit..." I touch the wall with my hoof and fall onto my butt. I just stare at the dent, guilt filling my heart. If I lose this magic duel, how would that reflect on Luna? She's already so isolated from the pony population; she doesn't need a useless student to bring shame to her name. Yet here I am, talentless and stupid. I just feel so tired all this.

"What do I do?" I whisper to myself.

As if to answer my rhetoric question, a knock came to my door.

"Go away," I yell. There is a pause and I wonder if they left until the knock repeats.

I groan and get up. I push the door open, not really sure who to expect since the only person who ever visits me is Luna and she usually comes through the balcony. Twilight Sparkle's nervous face greets me and I stand there stunned for a few moments. She stares back at me, looking for the words she wants to say.

"I know you probably don't want to see me," she says hesitantly. "You were right. I've been a horrible friend to you and I trusted Princess Celestia's opinion of you over my own. You risked your life to save ours.. I should never have doubted you. I just wanted to say I'm sorry." Since I don't say anything she goes on. "And if you don't mind, I can help you improve your magic for the upcoming duel," she finishes, scratching the floor with her hoof in agitation.

At that point, all the tension drains from my body and I just smile a crookedly. How unfair was this? After all the- the hurt and agitation this pony caused me just by thinking about her for the past few weeks, I just want to let all that go right here and now and start fresh. But first: "Twilight, please don't apologize. I'm the one who has to say sorry-"

Suddenly, Twilight is upside down and I frown. I'm about to ask her why she is standing on her head when I realize that my mouth won't move like I want it to. The world is frozen and so am I, unable understand what is happening until I see Luna walk up to me from my left out of nowhere. And then I realize what this is and all the happiness drains out of me and all that's left is an empty shell of false expectations.

"Please," I beg Luna, rejecting the conclusion my mind had reached. "Please tell me this isn't a dream."

Her expression is enough to crush my hopes and I just crumple down onto the floor.

"When did I fall asleep?" I ask, refusing to look at her out of shame.

"A few hours ago," Luna says quietly.

I lower my head and close my eyes.

"And how long have you been watching?" I wait for her but the only answer I receive is silence. Long enough it seems.

After an uncertain amount of time, she takes a deep breathe in and then out. A sharp jab of pain shoots through my head as I feel a strong tug on my mane that brings me roughly to my feet and nearly rips a chunk out in the process. "Ow!" I exclaim in surprise. I open my eyes to see the obvious culprit Luna step away with a stern expression on her face.

"We havest enough of thy moping!" She shouts, her voice magically amplified. I cover my ears from the sudden blast of volume. "We demandest that thou have... fun!" And with that strange statement, she grins a little smile and grabs me by the hooves, swinging me around and around until I feel downright dizzy and motion sick and she let's me go and I fly.

The 'what goes up must come down' rule doesn't seem to apply to me as I climb up the sky into a steep, almost vertical ascent. The light blue of the sky fades into a black so dark you can drown in and soon, I am soaring in a familiar nothingness. Luna glides up beside me and I realize the freedom I have in my movements when I follow her. She shows me a move like a zig zag, and I follow her. She picks up speed while spinning her body elegantly around and I try to copy her as well and though my movements are a little wobbly, I imitate her well enough.

We do this for a bit and before I know it, my lips are curled upwards in a small smile. We were flying through a black and endless empty space but as I carefully watch Luna, I see faint little stars falling off her mane and embedding themselves into the darkness.

I look behind us and see we are riding a trail of sparkling light. Luna goes down and touches down on darkness and I land after her. My hooves sink down in sand and when the smell and sound of waves wash over me, I realize that this is the same place where Luna asked me to be her student. I look around but the only lights to be seen is the faint twinkling behind us. "Where is the moon?" I ask, I smirk, realizing I asked the exact same question as last time. Luna looks up with a gentle smile and points at the sky.

"Create it Lee-um," she says. "You must bring it back once more."

I nod and close my eyes, repeating the process I did the first time. However, my mind is blank, I have no idea. What did the moon look like again? I open my eyes and I look at Luna in disbelief.

"I don't remember what the moon looks like," I whisper, fear lacing my words like poison.

Luna steps towards me and I step back. Sand crunches beneath our hooves.

"It is there," she insists. "You simply must remember it."

"No," I shake my head. Red flashes through my vision and I can't seem to catch my breath.

I can't take it anymore. For whatever reason, Luna took me in because I could create a moon but now I couldn't even do that? No, just freaking no! I smash my head to the ground to wake myself from this nightmare. I wake up and I feel a sickening burn in my throat. I quickly grope out my bed, my hooves desperately reaching out for something, anything that I can-

"Bleaurghhh!" I hurl onto the floor and the pungent smell of vomit fills my nose, urging me to vomit even more. I can hear the slapping of my innards meeting the marble flour. When I cough out the last of my stomach, I fall and my limbs no longer seem to obey me. "Tick Tock," I gurgle before the light leaves me and everything goes dark.

**Author's Note: Whoops, sorry it's been such a long time since my last update. Last minute preparations for uni have been insane since I'll be moving and I need to see all the friends I can and pack all the stuff I need before I go. There's probably a bunch of mistakes here since it was a bit rushed and I've been living on minimal sleep the past few days. **

**Xorobukkit: Nope, I haven't really explained completely why Celestia hates Lium so much. It feels really weird writing her character like that since it seems so OC but the elements that I have been trying to hint at here was that Lium is hurting Luna in some way. I believe that Celestia is capable of hatred when somepony she deeply cares about is suffering and to her, the fault lies with Lium. **


	17. Chapter 17 The first rise of the moon

I don't black out for long for soon I'm brought back to the stench of my half ingested foods and I push myself up in disgust. I hear the window doors open and I turn around panicked to see Princess Luna step into my dark room. When she sees me lying on the ground in a pile of sludge, she gallops over faster than I could see.

"I'm okay," I weakly say, trying to explain that this just looked worse then it was. "It's just food poisoning or something."

She wordlessly performs a spell that makes all the gunk disappear. The smell stays though and so I try a flowery scent smell but it's too weak to overpower the stench. Luna performs it instead and the smell washes off and is replaced by the smell of fresh rain.

She then pulls me onto her back and I'm surprised to see that I don't have the strength to resist. I'm carried to the bed and she tucks me in. A glass of water is teleported to my side and she helps me take small sips at a time.

When I finish three quarters of the glass, I nod to let her know I'm finished and I sink back down into the bed. She tucks me in and stands there for a few moments, just watching over me.

"...I'm sorry Princess," I finally whisper after the silence got too much for me.

"You don't have to speak," she softly says. "Nor apologize."

"I'm sorry," I repeat with less energy. "I don't deserve to be your student."

"You speak of nonsense," she say sharply.

"I speak the truth," I argue. "If you had a pony like Twilight-"

"Stop," she places a hoof on my mouth. "You must not start comparing yourself to Twilight or anypony Lee-um. That path leads to nowhere but pain."

"But even if I don't compare myself to her," I move her hoof from my mouth. "Every other pony will."

She purses her lips.

"I want to make you proud to be my teacher," I confess. "But all I do is get myself into trouble and embarrass you."

"I've never been embarrassed of you," she assures me in shock.

"Really? Cause I think having a seventeen year old blank flank as a student is pretty embarrassing."

"You should never be ashamed that you have yet to get a cutie mark," Luna states firmly. "It simply means you have all the more excitement awaiting you."

"But I've been thinking," I start out, my voice barely a whisper. "What if I don't have a cutie mark?"

"Lee-um..."

"No I'm serious. I've been living in that other world for so long, what if there's like a certain point of time by which you have to earn your mark by and I missed it?" My worries grow as I verbalize them and I have to consciously make an effort to keep my cool.

"That's not possible," Luna replies but she doesn't look sure.

"Do you see any other pony as old as me without their cutie mark? I see little colts and fillies less than half my size and they all have their marks. And," I pause, collecting my thoughts. "What if I don't have a talent?"

Luna put her hoof awkwardly over mine and I could see she wasn't really used to comforting ponies. That itself made me feel better. We were both just two awkward ponies in this lonely world.

I take a closer look at her. I haven't really been paying much attention to her recently due to the increased focus I had on studying but she looked really... tired. It's hard to see since her coat is dark blue but there are bags under her eyes and just the overall way in which she is carrying herself strongly hints at heavy fatigue.

"Are you okay?" I ask. She smiles.

"That question is one I should ask you," she says in good humour but I can see she is just trying to redirect the question.

"May I tell you the story of how I got my cutie mark?" she asks, and of course I can't say no so I nod.

"I was just a filly," she says. "With the same worries you have now. My sister had long received her mark and I felt nowhere close to earning my own. Did you know that at that time, I actually feared the dark?"

"No way," I breathed. The princess of the night, scared of the dark? That's nuts. I let myself smile a little in disbelief.

"Yes way," she smiles back. "I absolutely hated going outside after the sun had set. At the time you see, there was no moon."

I raise a brow.

"It is true," she says. "I believe because of that, I was not the only pony that feared the dark. When night approached, all the ponies would return to their homes and they never dared to step a hoof out. I was the same."

She looks out the window nostalgically.

"One day, one of my friends had disappeared. The whole village had gone out to search for him. My sister did her best to keep the sun up for as long as she could but the setting of the sun was inevitable and nopony wanted to be out after dark. Including me. I ended up returning to the warm glow of my home."

She hangs her head in shame.

"I looked out to the darkness from the safety behind the window and I thought of how scared my friend must be, all alone out there in the darkness. Soon, my guilt and determination led me to leave the house with a lantern to continue the search. However, the lanterns didn't last long back then as they do now. It quickly burned out and I was left stranded in the dark in the middle of my search. I cried but the darkness seemed to swallow my cries and that scared me even more. I stopped crying, and instead silently quaked in fear. I thought that I may very well go insane if I had to spend another minute out in the dark.

But then I thought of my friend, who must have been in a similar situation and that helped me focus. I took one step at a time in the darkness. I did not know where I was going but I thought that maybe by some stroke of chance, I would be able to find him. And I wished for a light to guide me. Oh how I wished. I closed my eyes for it made no difference if they were open and I tried to raise the sun as my sister did. I had never used so much magic before and when I opened my eyes, they were filled with pale light so very different from the one I expected. You cannot look at my sister's sun for too long lest it harm you. This new light however shone with such gentleness, I could not take my eyes away. And when I looked around-"

She smiles, her eyes completely drawn back into the past.

"It was a whole new world. My fear ebbed away and I fell in love with that night all the nights that followed. That moment was when I received my cutie mark."

It was a great story that made me smile regardless of whether it helped my situation or not. My eyelids start sinking lower and lower and Luna takes off her hoof from mine. It feels a little colder now.

"Rest," Luna says. "Tomorrow we shall begin brand new lessons. I think you are ready to move on to more advanced magic."

I don't think I'm ready at all but I still nod.

"And if you follow the stars in your dream," She adds. "You may find yourself back onto that beach. You can practice there. Remember that fear always clouds the light."

I nod again and before I drift off, I ask Luna in a small voice.

"And did you find your friend?"

I don't see her expression for now my eyes have closed and I am just one more step away from sleep but I hear her voice and the deep lament in her voice.

"No."


	18. Chapter 18

**_Author's Note: Whoo, sorry again for not updating more frequently. I'm kind of drowning in homework here. I got like two hours of sleep last night getting the last details done for a project and trying to balance my studies and extracurricular activities are pretty tough. Nonetheless, I present to you the next chapter. Hope you guys enjoy._**

When I fell asleep, I dreamt of Jason.

We were sitting on the edge of a fountain, drinking our cokes on a hot summer day. It was about a year ago when money really started rolling in for us. Jason managed to get us a little job with this crew. Basically, our roles were to serve as look outs whenever their deals went down. We were given some cheap cellphones with prepaid cards and if we saw anyone sketchy we warned them. The pay wasn't anything to crazy but apparently I had good eyes. I could see when someone was staring too long, even when they were a block or two down. When I assisted in avoiding a cop bust, they moved us up the food chain.

Looking back on it now, it was inevitable that we'd end up on that road.

We were two high school drop outs who were jumping from strangers' houses week to week. We were bound to eventually land in the hands of a dangerous crowd. Money never really seemed like a big deal before but that may have been because we only ever really knew chump change.

Honest labor at Mcdonald's didn't last long. Our boss there had too much time on his hands and usually spent it pointing out the minor flaws in our work performance. It stressed the crap out of me and drove Jason nuts until finally he snapped one hot, greasy day and dumped a fresh load of fries still soaked with boiling oil onto the manager's head, giving the guy second degree burns. I can still hear the screams.

Needless to say we got the frick out of there and stayed low for a week or two. I don't know how the cops never came after us. I was pretty fidgety for a while but Jason seemed pretty relaxed.

"Don't worry about it," he assured me. "That guy would be the last person to go the cops."

He never told me what he meant though I asked him to elaborate countless times.

The next job we found was through a friend of one of the guys that let us sleep over on weekdays if we cleaned the house for him.

His name was Nathan and he always had cash to blow. It only took five minutes for Jason to end up on his good side. We started hanging out with him more and more and he started trusting us a little more each time until he brought us under his wing.

Was it at that moment when things started going wrong?

Anyways, the dream went something like this. We were sitting down, tasting our ice cold drinks as we listened to cars passing by on the street from what seemed like miles away.

We didn't say anything, just soaked in the moment of being alive. It all felt so natural, I didn't feel anything was off. It was just another day.

As time passed by though, a sick feeling grew in my stomach, getting heavier and deeper than I could bear. Finally, I had to break that peaceful silence and say something, anything.

"I'm sorry," I say. I don't know what I'm apologizing for. Jason turns to me, surprised at the random regret I threw at him. Then he smiles, the corner of his mouth tipping up in that relaxed custom smile of his and he hits me on the back.

"Dude, you got to let it go. You did enough."

"No I didn't," I say, the words just spilling out and me wondering where they came from. "There's still so much left to do."

Jason's smile slowly drops down and he stares at the ground.

"Honestly, I wish I was there with you. Then we could show 'em. Everyone of those backstabbing bastards, sittin' on their high chairs, drinking their beer and flaunting their money as the rest of scrounge for the leftovers."

The darkness in his voice unsettles me but at the same time it feels comfortable. Familiar even.

"And Celestia too," he adds and that snaps me out of my trance because I never expected that name to be brought up by him of all people.

"You know Celestia?" I ask in surprise.

"Of course I know her," Jason spits. "That bitch doesn't even try to give you a chance."

"Yeah," I say hesitantly. It is so strange to hear Jason talk about her like that when they never even met but I agree with him.

"And that Twilight Sparkle, what a hypocrite. She's a backstabber phony like the rest of them," Jason continues his rampage. He's still staring at the concrete beneath his feet and I'm just watching at him in awe, only able to listen and nod as my chest aches at the mention of her name.

"That Luna chick is probably gonna turn on you too. I'd watch her if I were you."

I want to protest because Luna has been nothing but wisdom and kindness to me since she first took me in but I can't help but just breathe in Jason's words and believe them. Maybe Luna is going to throw me away the first chance she gets too. She couldn't possibly be satisfied with me as her student like she says she is.

Jason finally raises his head, a glint in his eager eyes.

"It can be just like the old days. You don't need any of them man. I got your back and you got mine."

"Yeah," I whisper. "You're right."

Jason's smile returns, wider than ever.

"Then let's wreak some havoc partner." He raises his hand.

Before I take his hand, a force draws me to look up and I search for the stars. A twinkle is the last thing I see before I am wrenched back into reality.

The sheets slip from my body as I step off the bed. My legs almost buckle underneath my weight but I use the bed post for support and steady myself. I drag my hooves across the marbled floor towards my desk where an untouched folded piece of parchment lay, fringed and yellowed. I pick it up and stare at it for a bit before unfolding it to reveal its contents to the world.

As expected, it is a map. Delicate, hoof drawn passageways fill the entire page with ink. It's like a maze and without a map I could see how easy it would be to get out of these caves. I check the amount of light that spills through my window and nod to myself. I still have time till night arrives. I poke my head out of my door. The hallway seems clear enough. As I am about to step out, I feel a slithering feeling crawl up my leg and onto my back. I turn my head to see Jason the salamander and his blank eyes looking back at me. I let him be like usual and trot out into the hallway, heading to the deepest parts of the castle.

I passed by a few guards who gave me suspicious looks. It makes sense now that everypony knows how much Celestia hates me and these are the day guards that are under the command of the princess of the sun herself. Right as I turn a corner, I bump into a pony, knocking her onto her butt with an oof.

It's Twilight Sparkle. When she sees that it was me who bumped her over, she makes no move to get up and instead, she just looks at me with a complicated expression. Right before she opens her mouth to say something, I walk past her, avoiding her eyes.

Guilt. It eats away inside me. I made her cry for frick's sake. Not to mention what I was planning to do… no. I'm only going to go check things out. I'm not betraying anyone, just confirming if there really is anything down there.

When I find the stairs that should lead me to the entrance of the caves, I enter them without hesitance. I don't look back as I leave the purple pony behind me.

It is an old set of stairs that much is obvious. There are no guards either which leads me to believe that Celestia really has forgotten about the so called item that Tick Tock wanted me to retrieve. The farther I tread the stairs, the more dust clouds I rile up. I use an air cleansing spell as I walk so I don't inhale any crap.

There is no natural light as well so I light up my horn while I'm at it. There is painful tug in my horn for using two spells at once but I ignore the strain and open the map up to mentally point out where I am right now. Tick Tick wrote a little red X at where the object he wants is located so I trace out the path I need to take and begin what feels like a quest. Finally, I reach the bottom and a great wooden door decaying with age stops me. I stop before it feeling my strength draining as I use more and more magic.

"I'm only going to go check," I whisper to myself again. "I only want to confirm that it even exists, whatever it is."

I'm not poisoned. I'm not dying. I just got a cold or something. That's why my limbs feel so heavy and that's why my insides feel like they are constantly churning and rotating in discomfort. I push open the door with great effort in my weakened state and when it finally scrapes open, a mound of dust and rock crumbs spill over my head and all over, causing me to cough violently. The coughing continues after I stop. Frowning in confusion, I turn around and freeze to see Twilight Sparkle coughing from the dust while holding her hoof to her mouth.

"W-what are you doing here?" I stutter, unable to believe I was caught so soon.

Did she follow me, knowing my plans? Did Celestia send her to trail me? How the hell did I not notice her till now? I stuff the map into my hoodie pocket as she occupied with getting the dust out of her lungs.

Her coughing dies down and she looks up to me guiltily.

"I tried to call out to you but you seemed a little occupied," she explains, clearing her throat awkwardly. "I just wanted to talk."

"Talk?"

My ear twitches. Talking sounds nice. Just forget all the ugly stuff that happened and just return to that first night when we just talked for hours. Forget Princess Celestia, Tick Tock and all the crap that happened between then and now. Forget the magic duel, my impending banishment and how I snapped at her and made her cry.

I look at her, unable to believe that we could truly just talk like we did before. I feel something drop inside me and I turn around. My horn's light was dying but I relit it with pure determination to not show her any weakness and walked on. I could now hear her hoof steps following after me.

"I want to be alone," I say coldly.

The steps falter for a moment before continuing.

"Stop following me," I say, a little more harshly. It didn't seem like she was sent here by Celestia but she could easily go and tattle tale on my anytime she wanted.

My horn's light starts dimming again and I feel too weak to strengthen it.

A purple tinged light shines behind me and I turn to see Twilight walk up beside me, helping me to light the way.

"I don't know why you need to be down here but it must be a good reason. Would you mind if I helped?" She smiles uncertainly.

That smile.

"Goddammit Twilight," I whisper, my legs collapsing under me.

"Are you okay?" She rushes up to me.  
"No," I groan. "No, I'm not okay. I don't know what's going on. Half my memories are gone, I don't know what the f**k Tick Tock wants with me and this freaking map," I tear the map out of my pocket and throw it against the ground. "I don't know if I'm really dying or just being tricked by that bastard again. I failed as a human in my old world and now I fail as a freaking unicorn here!" Just as I say that, my light dies out and a jab of pain reaches the core of my head. I cringe in pain. Twilight puts her hooves on my shoulders in an attempt to support me but it's obvious that she doesn't have any clue of how to help me. Makes sense, most of the stuff I'm saying must sound like absolute gibberish to her.

"Dying? What's this about dying?" she asks, her eyes widened.

"Who knows," I spit out bitterly. My mind briefly wonders if Tick Tock is watching me tell her all this since apparently that 'incredible' potion of his can do everything, including slowly killing me and let him see and hear whatever the frick I do. Then I decide screw it. If Tick Tock really does have that much control over me, I rather die than help him.

"Twilight," I whisper. "I need to tell you something."

And then I tell her everything.


	19. Chapter 19

When I'm done she stares at me silently.  
My fears grow in the dead air. Does she believe me? I can't read her expression... Honestly, my whole tale sounds like bullshit even to me. There are so many holes and though recounting everything did help me reorganize everything in my head, it also confused me more.

The biggest question still haunted me. Why was Tick Tock doing this? Yeah, I could totally just chalk it up to the reason that he's insane but my gut is telling me something else. Each of his actions seemed to have been planned for a dozen steps ahead..  
Could it be that me telling Twilight all this part of his plans too? I shake my head furiously. No that's ridiculous, I'm just being paranoid.  
The fact stands that I've chosen to stand against him. Small traces of pride tickle inside me. That's right. I'm on the side of good right now.  
I won't betray them now. Whatever Tick Tock wanted me to get for him, I won't get it.  
I don't care.  
I don't even care if Twilight doesn't believe my story.  
Circumstances made my presence an outsider here in Equestria but I still felt more home here than anywhere else. I know Celestia has her own reasons for hating me and she seems like the type of pony that has the best of reasons behind her actions. Maybe it's time for me to leave. I can forfeit the duel. I can go somewhere else and see new places. If I really am dying than maybe I can go look for the cure.

I'll go get my memories back from Luna. Tell her how grateful I am to her for taking me in and teaching me so much. I just refuse to be Tick Tock's tool any more here.  
"Why didn't you say anything sooner?" Twilight finally speaks, her voice sharp and condescending.  
I wasn't really expecting to be lectured so my response was a little slow.  
"Uh-"  
"No, nevermind. It's my fault," she lowers her eyes and sighs. "I wasn't there for you when you needed me."  
I open my mouth once more to reply but she interrupts again.  
"But you could have at least gone to Princess Luna about this! This isn't something that you should have been hiding!"  
I don't know why but I smirk. Her blind faith in me warms me up inside. It was a crappy sequence of inexplicable events yet she believed every word and even scolded me.  
"This is no time to be sitting around and smirking!" Twilight exclaims in exasperation. "We have to go up tell Princess Celestia and Princess Luna about this!"  
The urgency in her voice jogs me back out of my trance and I ignore the small uneasiness that's been growing ever since I told Twilight all the Tick Tock business and follow after her as we retrace our steps.  
"Hey," I call out, my voice a little weaker than usual. "Can we hold off telling Princess Celestia first?"

My reason was not only because I was pretty damn sure that Celestia wouldn't believe anything I say. It was also because I felt like I owed Luna the truth first. She opened up to me but I didn't to her and the guilt left a sick feeling in my stomach.  
Twilight didn't ask any more questions. She just nodded and we galloped on. After about five minutes of full on running, I noticed something was awry.  
"Stop!" I cry out and Twilight stops, panting slightly.  
I feel unbelievably weak but I straighten my back as I pant for air.

"Something is… off."  
"You noticed it too?" she asks, looking around the caverns.  
We definitely didn't go that deeply into the caves but the path back to castle seemed to just go on forever.  
"Are we lost?" I ask, slowly catching my breath.  
"That's not possible," Twilight says seriously. "We didn't make any turns going in so the path back should be straight too."  
"This is weird," I whisper. A horrible premonition was festering in my gut.  
"Let's go a little further to make sure," Twilight suggests. "We'll go slower this time. Don't push yourself Lium, you look exhausted."  
I nod gratefully, and we trot at an easier pace as I gather my bearings.  
I'm too occupied in my thoughts to worry about conversation. I don't have a watch so I have no idea how long we walked for but it was definitely much longer than it should be.  
We finally stop and I am thoroughly rattled.  
"This shouldn't be possible," Twilight says, a hint of panic starting grow in her voice. "What in Equestria is going on?"  
I couldn't answer her question but it turns out I didn't need to. From the darkness that the light of her horn could not reach, a soft voice pierced the silence. A voice I knew all too well.  
"Just simple illusion magic my dear."  
I snap from the very first moment I realized whose voice this was. I drew from the last reserves of strength I didn't even knew I had and hurl myself towards the source. My hooves meet the flesh of his neck and without hesitation I-

Suddenly, a great invisible force knocks me away and my back suddenly meets with the cavern wall with enough force to momentarily daze me.

"Oh, you've gotten much more violent since the last time we met," Tick Tock picks himself up and brushes off the dust from his cloak.

"Are you okay?" Twilight asks me, and I nod without taking my eyes off Tick Tock. She then turns to the light coated pony.

"I assume that you're Tick Tock?"

"Yes I am, there's no reason to deny it," Tick Tock says wearily. Today his appearance is that of a pony in perhaps his thirties and he looks drastically more aged and worn from the last time I had seen him. "And you must be Twilight Sparkle, Princess Celestia's dearest student."

"You almost killed my friends and me in that explosion," she says, anger blatantly seeping from her tone. "Not you mention you poisoned Lium! Give him the antidote right now!"

"I will, I will," Tick Tock nodded grimly. "As soon as he fulfills his side of the deal."

"You-"

"There's no point in arguing with me," Tick Tock sighs. Twilight's horn glows in violet light and I don't know what she was aiming to do but Tick Tock disappears before she can finish her spell. With it's target suddenly missing, Twilight's horn dies and she looks around confused.

"Where did he go?" I ask, spinning around.

"Look," his voice echoes around the cavern, making it impossible to discern where the source is from. "All I need, is for you to follow this map." A paper flutters by me, coming out of nowhere and I catch it impulsively. It's the map I hurled in my fit of rage earlier. "And get the cup. That's it. After that, you'll get the antidote and you'll never have to see me again. Does that not sound like fair trade."  
"You're asking me to steal something important enough that Princess Celestia felt she needed to hide in a complex underground maze," I retort, my voice getting weaker. It felt like extreme hunger except I knew no amount of food would help get my strength back. "Not to mention you're blackmailing me with my fricking life here after you poisoned me."

Silence.

"It was not something I wanted to do."

His voice sounded… regretful?

I blink.

"Not something you wanted to do?" I whisper, incredulous at the thought. My stomach churned in severe heat in my inability to understand his words.

"Not something you wanted to do?" I repeat, my voice stronger. "Then why the hell did you do it?!" I stamp my hoof and it buckles underneath me. A sudden wave of nostalgia hits me like a tsunami of dizziness and I retch violently, unleashing the contents of my stomach onto the ground. The unpleasant smell of vomit fills the area and causes another round of gagging.

"You need to hurry," Tick Tock's voice carries around us with unmistakable urgency.

"The symptoms are getting worse sooner than I thought. At this rate, you won't make it."  
"Then give me the fricking antidote," I spit, my mouth burning from the stomach acid.

"Just get the item I want and I will," Tick Tock replied firmly.

"Oh just go f-ck yourself Tick Tock, I rather die than help you," I reply, feeling a bit whoozy. Was it just me or was the cavern getting darker? I felt a warmth on my back and I turn to see a concerned Twilight with a glowing horn. My vomit disappears and my breath feels refreshed. Damn, a cleaning spell. It's such a thorough one too.

I hear a sigh and Tick Tock redirects his words.

"Twilight Sparkle," Tick Tock calls out. I suddenly feel a dud pain hit the back of my neck and the cavern distorts into a world of swirly patterns and sparkles that remind of Luna's night sky.

**It's a short chapter but yeah. Hope you enjoy it guys. **


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